General Electric’s team of technologists have come up with a plan to reduce our nation’s carbon footprint while saving the typical American homeowner over $850 a year on annual utility bills.

According to MarketWatch, the Average American home racks up a utility bill of $1,240 each year. GE’s plan would slash that by reducing energy usage in new and existing homes by 70 percent or more. The plan is as follows:

GE will link rooftop solar energy systems, energy-efficient appliances and energy-efficient lighting systems to the Nucleus Home Energy Manager — GE’s recently released product that delivers real time stats of a home’s energy consumption to any PC or smart phone application. The setup will enable homeowners to see how and where they use energy, and decide how to best cut their own consumption.

GE will test its new energy efficiency offering at several houses in cities throughout the western United States, including: Phoenix, Arizona; Sacramento and San Diego, California.

A portion of the funding for GE’s energy efficiency tests will come from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which will chip in $5 million. The test is part of the DOE’s Building Industry Research Alliance, a group of over 80 energy industry partners committed to building net-zero, energy-efficient homes across the country. Between 20 percent and 30 percent of the cost will be covered by participating companies, including the utility companies that serve Phoenix, Sacramento and San Diego.

According to CNET, by enabling homeowners to monitor their power usage, GE’s system will encourage them to avoid consuming lots of energy during peak times, when electricity is typically the most expensive. GE suggests this, on its own, could yield energy bill savings of 30 percent. The energy produced by the solar panels will cut consumption by another 40 percent. Testing is scheduled to last for three years and will include single homes and entire neighborhoods.