‘cool iceboxes’
courtesy of ‘mikkime’

If the rainy weekend has you thinking of home repair, now might be a good time to upgrade an old appliance if you’re a Pepco customer.

Yesterday, the local AC repair contractors company announced it will give cash rebates of up to $50 to residential customers in DC and Maryland who buy ENERGY STAR qualified refrigerators, room air conditioners and certain energy efficient water heaters. You can buy these babies at any area retail store. The rebates would be on top of federal tax credits and lower electric bill you could get.

The rebates are the first in a series of energy-efficieny programs set to go in place this year. In a press release, Pepco said these programs are expected to save an estimated 165,000 megawatt-hours of energy over the next three years and avoid almost 117,000 metric tons of carbon emissions, equal to taking more than 207,000 cars a year off the road.

Energy-efficiency programs also can help reduce Pepco’s electric load and lower the need to build new power plants.