Texas power company controlling consmer theromstats remotely to save energy

I found this article quite troubling but not terribly surprising. Smart thermostats being remotely controlled by the power company now. I guess it pays to read what you are signing onto.

www.dailydot.com... s/

Another resource linked into the dailydot piece,

www.khou.com...

originally posted by: machineintelligence
Smart thermostats being remotely controlled by the power company now.

They're mostly doing it while residents are in bed ...

... for now.

Is there some clause in the purchase of this these smarts devices that hands over control (essentially a limited power of attorney) to the power company?

I don't see how this is different than a man with a long stick standing outside your window reaching in and moving your dial.

How can this be legal?

I expect a court challenge.

There is nothing underhanded about this.
I was offered this through my utility and I declined, there was some benefit like overall reduced cost or something.
It is not sneaky and nobody is being forced to do it. People are literally told before they sign up for this.


From the actual article:

English appears to have enrolled the thermostat, operated by the company EnergyHub, in a program known as “Smart Savers Texas,” KHOU 11 notes. The program, which customers have to opt-into

a reply to: machineintelligence

The program, which customers have to opt-into, allows power companies to remotely adjust thermostats when energy demands are high in exchange for an entry into a sweepstakes

Sounds like this is an opt-in program they agreed to in exchange for the opportunity for free #.

Yeah...don't trust corporations when they say 'you have a chance at free # if you let us control a part of your home.'

Bad #in' idea...

But changing the thermostat wastes energy.

My dad worked at a plant that had been several separate businesses at one time. The offices had their own power meter. The company decided to use this to test if turning the air conditioning up at night would save money. They turned it up to 85 in the night and 76 in the day when the office workers were there. After a month, the power usage had gone up 30% because the air conditioners ran so much more to get the temperature down in the morning. They stopped doing this and it went back to what it had been after the next month. They never did this in their other offices and office buildings as it was proven to waste money.

Keep the thermostat at one setting if that area is occupied every day to save energy and money. Don't change it in a house.

Sounds like the power company is wanting to make more money.

It is either this or complete power failure at a very bad time. Take your pick.

a reply to: Deplorable

Actually, the article implies the opposite. At night, the tendency for a house to heat up is minimal since there's usually not as much of that bright stuff shining on it. The complaint came from a man who claims his wife and young son had laid down for a nap... that implies it was during the daytime.

Also, the thermostat control is specified as being for periods of high energy demand. Nighttime is typically a period of low energy demand, at least in warmer weather. Many businesses are closed and most people aren't cooking or otherwise using heavy usage appliances.

I'm withholding my sympathies for now, though, because of the following:

English appears to have enrolled the thermostat, operated by the company EnergyHub, in a program known as “Smart Savers Texas,” KHOU 11 notes. The program, which customers have to opt-into, allows power companies to remotely adjust thermostats when energy demands are high in exchange for an entry into a sweepstakes. Other power companies have been known to offer customers reduced billing costs for entering similar programs.

Upon realizing the details of the program, English says he immediately unenrolled: “I wouldn’t want anybody else controlling my things for me.”

How exactly does one agree to remote thermostat control without realizing it means the thermostat can be remotely controlled?

What worries me more is that the increasing difficulty in producing needed energy, driven by the Global Warming hoax, is going to take a more sinister turn before all is said and done: power companies can only produce so much power, and when demand outstrips need, something has to give. That something will not be anything that one must opt into or install a wifi-controlled appliance for... it will be those smart meters outside your house. You see, those things are also remotely controlled, and since they are the property of the power company they are controlled by the power company. All someone in the power office needs to do is click a button on the screen and everything goes dark. No hot water, no microwave, no heat, no AC, no computer, no TV, no internet... nothing. The whole house goes dark.

That's a major inconvenience, but still just an inconvenience for most. Where it gets troubling is when people have a medical condition that requires a certain amount of heat or AC to maintain their health. Others depend on medical electrical appliances, like oxygen concentrators. These people exist; my mother risked gangrene in her hands every time the temperature dropped, and used an oxygen concentrator for a short while before she died. A complete loss of climate control can be deadly for some. I reserve my sympathy for them.

Plus, this is happening during the summer months. Humans are biologically much better equipped to deal with the heat than with the cold. Heat exhaustion can be staved off by application of cool water or often simply by resting comfortably out of direct sunlight. Freezing temperatures require energy to correct: hard work, or in extreme cases, shivering. Insulation in the form of clothing helps, but energy is still required to produce body heat. If power is interrupted during a cold snap, people could easily die.

But, anyone who dies of exposure in their bed is just helping reduce carbon dioxide, I guess.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: graysquirrel
It is either this or complete power failure at a very bad time. Take your pick.

Or maybe… just maybe the state should invest in their infrastructure. For some reason places like Nevada, Arizona, Alaska and other places around the world manage to have reliable electrical grids even though they experience extreme temperatures.

a reply to: machineintelligence

An electric company attempting to save customers money?

My how things have changed!

a reply to: graysquirrel

It is either this or complete power failure at a very bad time. Take your pick.

So you are saying that saving some power then using a lot more in all the houses turning the thermostats back down in the morning is better. You have to figure on the peek usage and not the average useage. The peeks are what causes power outages.

It is a case of a given area having say 10% to 20% of air conditioners on for any given time verses having 90% come on all at once and for longer times. That causes problems.

originally posted by: TheRedneck
Actually, the article implies the opposite.

Excellent deductions. I can only repeat what my cousin was telling me happened at his house during the last ice storm. They turned his heat down to redirect electricity to higher demand (translation: rip-off costs) regions of the state.

a reply to: Bunch

Nevada, Arizona, and Alaska are fairly sparsely populated and don't have many high-energy-usage industries. The one notable exception, Las Vegas, is powered by the Hoover Dam and thus doesn't have a lot of energy demand issues.

Investing in more power production capability would be the optimal answer, of course, but new power plants are regulated by the DoE. There are a lot, and I mean a LOT, of hoops to jump through, making new energy production facilities quite expensive. That dynamic isn't going to get any better any time soon either. With so many government officials promoting unworkable "alternative energy" proposals over conventional power plants, and with nuclear power being such a touchy subject, it's just downright hard to get approval for a new power plant. All the while, our energy demands are rising as our population increases.

In actuality, there are plenty of ways we could improve our grid structure. A great many people and larger cities are coastal, and wave energy is approaching commercial viability despite a complete lack of support from government (most government officials actually don't know anything about it; all they hear are lobbyists touting wind and solar). Nuclear is a great option, especially the newer reactor designs like EWR, but there is considerable political pressure against it.

The advent of scientism is the heart of the problem. Too many people have knee-jerk reactions to purposely misleading articles written not by scientists, but by reporters with agendas. Even when a scientist does manage to hit the spotlight, their work is often discounted immediately by the media if it does not promote a pet agenda exclusively. At the rate we're going, we'll all be "following the science" in the dark and cold before long.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck
Texas runs it own power grid managed by ERCOT is the only state in the nation that does that. They do it mostly for political reasons than anything else. The Texas grid isn’t regulated by the Federal Government so the only people at fault here is the Texas political class you should not look elsewhere.

a reply to: Deplorable

I wouldn't doubt it one bit. Power companies are there to make money, after all.

People could, of course, help their own energy situation if everyone were to pull together... but that's nigh impossible. The vast bulk of energy usage in a typical home is heating and AC. The electric cookstove is second (code here requires a 50A breaker for that alone) but it is a far far distant second place, both because it actually operates at full power for a very short period of time and it doesn't draw power automatically.

I keep my thermostat during the summer at 80 degrees. There are several reasons for this. Of course it reduces the power bill, but we have also found that our bodies can acclimate to that temperature with a minimal amount of light clothing, and the summer heat waves we have here don't hurt quite so bad if we're already acclimated to the 80 degree temperature. Want to feel like you're melting? Walk from an inside temperature below 70 into a 90+ degree day outside. It's the sudden change in temperature that hurts, not the absolute temperature.

Of course, I also keep the thermostat up to 74 in the winter. Raynauds sucks, and that makes it a little more bearable. Worth the extra money IMO.

Beyondknowledge also makes an excellent point: it takes much more energy to cool a place down (or warm it up) than it does to maintain a constant temperature. People who walk into a room and go "I'm cold; turn the thermostat up" really annoy me. In the first place, that cold feeling will likely be long gone by the time the temperature actually raises enough to feel it, and secondly, they are spending money for something that does them absolutely no good. I even go so far as to make sure I change from heat to cold within that 74-80 degree "window" so the heat pump doesn't suddenly kick on and try to change the temperature too much. I'd rather get a blanket for that 70 degree night when I didn't catch the window or break a little sweat because it got up to 82 degrees for the same reason, than I would pay the higher bill for no good reason.

My heat pump also lasts a little longer.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Bunch

The grid may not be Federally regulated, but new power production facility construction is. Not saying Texas isn't responsible; some of the blame probably does belong there. But as long as the DoE is making it hard to build new production facilities, there's only so much Texas can do.

I'm on TVA power (Tennessee Valley Authority). That's a similar arrangement, as TVA already is a part of the government and can make its own regulations for its grid. But the DoE still exercises authority when it comes to new plants.

TheRedneck

I bet they have little to no restrictions on companies' use of utilities. I highly suspect that the sky's the limit on corporate consumption while the average Jane and Joe are paying trough the nose for half-assed services that get shut down during peak usage hours.

They create the demand for utilities, making a hook-up mandatory or no occupation of your home and demand a monthly hook-up fee when your usage falls below a certain level. Even if you produced enough energy for your own use, you will have a lot of red tape to get permission and then have to sell any excess back into the utility grid because you will still have to be hooked-up to it to be legal occupants and to keep from getting your home condemned.

Screw all utility companies and their monopoly on energy and their control over the small consumers.

a reply to: Bunch

More people are moving to Texas. That is all it is.....California went to # and all their conservatives moved here.

a reply to: machineintelligence

Texas power company's that cannot handle extreme cold nor extreme heat or so it would seem.

Who the hell is on the board of directors of these spurious power companies, Goldilocks ffs?

Just bloody well update the info structure and technology so it can accommodate the temperatures, its not like it does not have to be done!

a reply to: [post=25944672]machineintelligence[/postings not too hard to minimise energy consumption, insulate, put double glazing in. Foam tape air gaps to the outside. In winter cover up your air vents to minimise heat loss.

I hand hydronic heating in my place I have done all the above. I get home at 17.30, put the heating on to 21 degrees, and turn it off at about 9pm.

When I get up in the morning the house is still 17 degrees outside temp might be 8 degrees. I feel this ain’t too bad.

Why give people control of your heating.