During peak time in the summer, Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative employees work extra hard to keep you cool. There's a tremendous strain on their resources from 3 to 8 pm with more air conditioning and fans in use during heat waves.

Michael Aulgur with the co-op says that everyone's trying to use electricity at once during that time.

"If you think about it, folks are coming home from work," he explains. "They're starting up their oven, opening up their refrigerator, they're doing their day to day activities of those that come home in the evening."

More than half of the electricity you use comes from heating and cooling. So the Co-op asks its customers to use less power during these hot days, because that will lower costs for everyone in the end.

"Anything that we can do to help our members conserve and ultimately save money is in our best interests because its in their best interests," Aulgur says.

Aulgur gives very common tips like closing your curtains during hot hours or raising your thermostat a bit. But he also says you should unplug appliances that may be off, but are still taking in power.... like laptop computers.

"Not only unplug the laptop but also unplug the power cord from the wall."