Making Energy Saving Competitive

There are many good reasons to save energy in your household. Saving money, protecting the environment and also to become a winner. With reducing the carbon footprint high on almost everyone’s agenda many organisations are now running energy-saving competitions, offering prizes to households and businesses that can reduce their emissions.

The competitions come in many different formats and scales. From competitions including whole neighbourhoods or just filling in a survey about reducing your travel emissions, there is a whole host of prizes to be won. Prizes include eco-friendly cars, large cash amounts and energy saving technology. If this would provide extra incentive to cut your carbon footprint then it may be time to give your energy-saving efforts that competitive edge.

Finding the Right Energy- Saving Competitions

The trick to finding competitions is finding the ones that get your competitive juices flowing. There is no point signing up to a competition that will not hold your interest. Small competitions where you just compete against yourself to win individual prizes may appeal to begin with. The bigger competitions for large prizes against households throughout the UK, and even Europe, may be a good idea if you want to make big changes.
The Energy Saving Trust has a dedicated section to all the competitions they run.  It is advisable to sign up to their free newsletter which will keep you informed of competitions and is a monthly release, so will no clog up your emails.

The Trust is not the only place that offers competitions though. There are a huge variety of competitions and probably the best place to get the details are on forums, such as our own Housing Energy Advisor forum.

Forums are great for this as they have whole communities that are interested in these sorts of things and will share the details and their experiences with everybody. In addition, the organisations that run the competitions often like to promote their competitions so post details and links on there. When they do this however, the administrators of the site monitor this and delete any that can be considered as spam, so you get honest and worthwhile information.

Social media is another method to stay in touch with competitions. Companies often offer prizes just for joining their Facebook or Twitter pages and can keep you in touch with energy-saving competitions.

Are Energy-Saving Competitions a Good Idea?

The competitions are certainly a good idea. Almost everyone could find a competition that will push them to save more money on energy bills. They are usually simple to sign up to and are completely free of charge. Big competitions such as Energy Neighbourhoods challenge require teams of households to sign up so will be more work and require co-operation between households.

Yet, being part of a team is a great way to motivate yourself and retain interest as you track your results with friends. They have bigger prizes too.

People can be sceptical about competitions and doubt they can actually gain anything. Unfortunately, in wider society this can be the case. With energy-saving competitions though, it is important to remember the motivations of those running the competition. Reducing the carbon footprint is a national campaign so the Government will often support these competitions. Competitions are there to cut emissions and the prizes are genuine. On top of that, you will be cutting your energy costs win or lose! If unsure about a certain competition, particularly if you are asked for any form of money, do not enter.

Competition brings the best out in us. Whether against other people or just ourselves, an energy-saving competition can be a great way to help reduce your energy bills and who knows…this might not be the only way you win!

Written by Michael Hallam