Keeping the season bright without breaking the bank

The holidays are fast approaching, often bringing with them added and unexpected expenses. That's why Arizona Public Service would like to offer business owners some tips they can use to save money this holiday season, while still keeping the season bright.

Installing timers on holiday lights is a great way to create a festive mood for customers while allowing business owners who decorate their establishments to save money. An additional savings can be garnered by replacing incandescent holiday lights with energy-saving light-emitting diode, (LED) bulbs, which are 90-percent more efficient than traditional lights.

LED lights will reduce energy usage and provide other secondary benefits, including:

• Safety — LED lights produce less heat and stay cool to the touch. Additionally, you can safely connect many strands of lights without overloading your circuits.

• Durability — LED lights are sturdier and more resistant to damage than conventional lights. Unlike most traditional bulbs, when one light goes out on a string, the others will remain lit.

• Long life — It has been found that LED lights have a useful life of approximately 35,000 hours, or four years of continuous operation.

With the shopping season just around the corner, many businesses will see an increase in customer traffic. With more customers entering and exiting establishments during cooler weather, businesses can waste energy due to heat loss. One way business owners can economize this holiday season is to have an APS-qualified contractor service their heating units. This will ensure the units are running as efficiently as possible.

At APS, we understand this is a busy season for retailers, and while we are proud of our reliability record, outages can occur. For business owners, time spent without power can translate into time spent not serving customers. While we will do everything to keep the power flowing, there are steps you can take to ensure you remain informed and that power is restored as quickly as possible if an outage occurs.

• Business owners can call the APS business line at 1-800-253-9407 to report the outage. (Don't assume someone else has called. Inform us directly!) Use the business line to receive updates on the outage

• Request to receive a call back when power is restored

• Follow us on Twitter for information on large outages at http://twitter.com/APSOutageCenter.

Business owners can find more ways to save through the APS Solutions for Business program and in the Business Services section of aps.com.

Andrea Bereznak is the business and community relations manager for APS. She can be reached at andrea.bereznak@aps.com.