29°

Laird Jones used to take long showers, his wife said.

Now he's got five minutes.

Francine Jones said she uses a digital timer to help keep showers short in her house after last month's avalanches caused residential electric rates to rise 447 percent.

Gone too are the lights, including the television and the nightlights; the couple uses battery-powered camping lanterns instead.

Jones said her lifestyle changes have been somewhat drastic, but she made up her mind that she was not going to pay a high electric bill.

"I refuse to," she said. "It's almost like a personal challenge."

The result?

"I think we've done well," she said. "We've cut 55 percent (of our electrical use)."

And their electric bill was less than half of what they expected it to be.

Though the Joneses might be saving more electricity than most in town, their conservation efforts are not unique. And those efforts don't appear to be lessening, according to Scott Willis, vice president of generation at Alaska Electric Light & Power Co., the private utility that provides Juneau's electricity.

Willis said there was a dramatic drop in electric usage overall in Juneau the days following the avalanches, and now the city's usage has "sort of leveled off."

As a whole, Juneau has used about 30 percent less energy since the avalanches than it did during the same time period last year, according to Willis.

Before the avalanches, Juneau was using about 1,000 megawatt-hours of energy per day. Now usage is just above 600 MWh.

Willis said he thinks current electrical usage will stay roughly where it is, with slight variations due to weather.

Warm weather on Saturday brought the lowest energy use since the avalanches. With temperatures hitting more than 70 degrees, usage dropped to 567 MWh and diesel use dropped to 34,528 gallons.

"I don't see any indication that people are slacking off conservation and going backwards," Willis said.

At a Tribal Energy Fair on Saturday, Willis asked the roughly 500 people present how many of them had changed their behavior to stop using as much electricity. Almost everyone raised their hands.

"Don't stop until I tell you," Willis said. "Your conservation is working - please continue to do that."

But there is a danger that some may take energy conservation efforts too far, said Gayle Wood, AEL&P's director of consumer affairs.

She said she's had to encourage customers to turn their heat back on, and tell others they don't need to sit in the dark when compact fluorescent light bulbs won't use much energy.

She said AEL&P is willing to work with all of its customers to make sure they will be able to afford the electricity they need.

Marquam George, a professor of construction technology at the University of Alaska Southeast, said the city had already "taken the low-hanging fruit" in terms of energy conservation and should look at more lasting changes.

He said now is the time to beef up the lax or nonexistent building codes to make buildings in Juneau more energy efficient.

"I think it's time to say you know, we need to do it differently," George said. "Conservation is still the fuel of choice."

As for Laird Jones, he said he'll keep taking shorter showers in the future, even when electrical rates have decreased.

"I'm kind of used to it," he said.

• Contact reporter Alan Suderman at 523-2268 or e-mail alan.suderman@juneauempire.com.