Earth Hour is coming up again later this month and Fortis Alberta has increased grants by ten thousand dollars for communities that save the most power.

Natasha Russell with Fortis says the goal of Earth Hour is just to get people thinking about saving on power and what devices they can maybe do without.

She says a lot of communities have come on board.

"Last year we had more than 25 communities enter, again it's an opportunity for them to have a little bit of fun with their communities and have an opportunity to win a grant that can go towards helping to make improvements in their community, obviously to help the environment and to be more energy efficient," she says. "A lot of restaurants have hosted candlelight dinners, other communities have held bonfire gatherings and this year I'm really excited to see what they're going to come up with."

Russell says last year enough energy was saved to power 20,000 homes for an hour.

Communities have until the end of business Monday March 7 to make a submission to Fortis and qualify for the challenge.

Grants are worth $7,500, $5,000 and $2,250.