4 ms·

Smart thermostat swarms are straining the US grid

16 points by fastest963 4y ago

bilsbie 4y ago
A good example of why engineers should think of the big picture
- hulitu 4y ago
  What ? No. My project is the most important. Now only if someone would specify good interoperability requirements.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
This feels dubious to me (edit: and I was right, the headline is a lie, pretending a warning about a potential future problem has already happened) Does smart mean internet connected? I guess I'm impressed if they have 40% market penetration. But the behaviour of having a default time to turn on describes pretty much every timer based thermostat. One of the big sales pitches of 'smart' thermostats was that thermostats with timers were too hard for normal people to set up and so their potential gains went unused. So if people are literally reducing their energy usage during the night as a result of 'smart' thermostats then that's a good thing. Ah, you don't have to read beyond the abstract to see how it's been misrepresented: > We find that despite lowering overall energy consumption Lets just pause a moment and take in the full impact of that opener.... > smart thermostat control algorithms can severely increase the winter peak heating demand through load synchronization during the early morning hours, when solar energy is unavailable. Note the use of the word can and peak here. And that it says elsewhere that wind is available at this time. And the solution they propose, is to make the thermostats 'smarter' with regard to carbon intensity and predicted supply/demand which is the whole reason for having a smart thermostat connected to the internet in the first place. Vague negative lies about anything that stops fossil fuels getting burnt is a real weird feature of our current society. It's like you've offended someone's god or something by suggesting burning less of an expensive poison is a good thing. This is their open source code btw: https://github.com/zlee406/smart-heat https://github.com/zlee406/smart-heat
- _aavaa_ 4y ago
  > And the solution they propose, is to make the thermostats 'smarter' with regard to carbon intensity and predicted supply/demand which is the whole reason for having a smart thermostat connected to the internet in the first place. My current "smart" thermostat does not take into account other people's energy usage. It's known when I'm not home and doesn't heat/cool as much then. They address this directly in the paper: > Fig. 2 shows that on average, smart thermostats tend to use setbacks at night and during the workday, likely in an attempt to save energy. [...] From a thermodynamics perspective, setbacks can only reduce energy consumption to the extent that they can reduce the average indoor temperature, and thus the building’s heat loss, assuming the heat pump efficiency remains constant. While setbacks can certainly reduce the instantaneous energy consumption in the short term, recovering to original indoor temperature requires an almost equivalent amount of additional energy consumption, with the only total energy savings being from the reduced heat loss from the temporary reduction in indoor temperature.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    > From a thermodynamics perspective, setbacks can only reduce energy consumption to the extent that they can reduce the average indoor temperature, and thus the building’s heat loss, assuming the heat pump efficiency remains constant. While setbacks can certainly reduce the instantaneous energy consumption in the short term, recovering to original indoor temperature requires an almost equivalent amount of additional energy consumption, with the only total energy savings being from the reduced heat loss from the temporary reduction in indoor temperature. That is some very fancy bullshit. They're saying that lowering your thermostat only helps because less heat is lost to the environment. Yes, that is why it helps, it's not a perpetual motion machine or a magic trick, it's a slight efficiency improvement that can pay for itself in a year or so because you burn less fossil fuels as a result and then leaves you with a remote control thermostat that can talk to the grid for further benefits.
    - _aavaa_ 4y ago
      > it's a slight efficiency improvement that can pay for itself in a year or so because you burn less fossil fuels as a result and then leaves you with a remote control thermostat that can talk to the grid for further benefits. Except they currently don't talk to the grid. And the question to ask is does that efficiency improvement outweigh the current increase in emissions by people's houses all heating/cooling themselves in the same time period resulting in increases in peak demand.

16 points by fastest963 4y ago

bilsbie 4y ago

A good example of why engineers should think of the big picture

hulitu 4y ago
What ? No. My project is the most important. Now only if someone would specify good interoperability requirements.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

This feels dubious to me (edit: and I was right, the headline is a lie, pretending a warning about a potential future problem has already happened) Does smart mean internet connected? I guess I'm impressed if they have 40% market penetration. But the behaviour of having a default time to turn on describes pretty much every timer based thermostat. One of the big sales pitches of 'smart' thermostats was that thermostats with timers were too hard for normal people to set up and so their potential gains went unused. So if people are literally reducing their energy usage during the night as a result of 'smart' thermostats then that's a good thing. Ah, you don't have to read beyond the abstract to see how it's been misrepresented: > We find that despite lowering overall energy consumption Lets just pause a moment and take in the full impact of that opener.... > smart thermostat control algorithms can severely increase the winter peak heating demand through load synchronization during the early morning hours, when solar energy is unavailable. Note the use of the word can and peak here. And that it says elsewhere that wind is available at this time. And the solution they propose, is to make the thermostats 'smarter' with regard to carbon intensity and predicted supply/demand which is the whole reason for having a smart thermostat connected to the internet in the first place. Vague negative lies about anything that stops fossil fuels getting burnt is a real weird feature of our current society. It's like you've offended someone's god or something by suggesting burning less of an expensive poison is a good thing. This is their open source code btw: https://github.com/zlee406/smart-heat https://github.com/zlee406/smart-heat

_aavaa_ 4y ago
> And the solution they propose, is to make the thermostats 'smarter' with regard to carbon intensity and predicted supply/demand which is the whole reason for having a smart thermostat connected to the internet in the first place. My current "smart" thermostat does not take into account other people's energy usage. It's known when I'm not home and doesn't heat/cool as much then. They address this directly in the paper: > Fig. 2 shows that on average, smart thermostats tend to use setbacks at night and during the workday, likely in an attempt to save energy. [...] From a thermodynamics perspective, setbacks can only reduce energy consumption to the extent that they can reduce the average indoor temperature, and thus the building’s heat loss, assuming the heat pump efficiency remains constant. While setbacks can certainly reduce the instantaneous energy consumption in the short term, recovering to original indoor temperature requires an almost equivalent amount of additional energy consumption, with the only total energy savings being from the reduced heat loss from the temporary reduction in indoor temperature.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  > From a thermodynamics perspective, setbacks can only reduce energy consumption to the extent that they can reduce the average indoor temperature, and thus the building’s heat loss, assuming the heat pump efficiency remains constant. While setbacks can certainly reduce the instantaneous energy consumption in the short term, recovering to original indoor temperature requires an almost equivalent amount of additional energy consumption, with the only total energy savings being from the reduced heat loss from the temporary reduction in indoor temperature. That is some very fancy bullshit. They're saying that lowering your thermostat only helps because less heat is lost to the environment. Yes, that is why it helps, it's not a perpetual motion machine or a magic trick, it's a slight efficiency improvement that can pay for itself in a year or so because you burn less fossil fuels as a result and then leaves you with a remote control thermostat that can talk to the grid for further benefits.
  - _aavaa_ 4y ago
    > it's a slight efficiency improvement that can pay for itself in a year or so because you burn less fossil fuels as a result and then leaves you with a remote control thermostat that can talk to the grid for further benefits. Except they currently don't talk to the grid. And the question to ask is does that efficiency improvement outweigh the current increase in emissions by people's houses all heating/cooling themselves in the same time period resulting in increases in peak demand.