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22,000 smart thermostats in Colorado locked over ‘energy emergency’
- hoppyhoppy2 4y agoSee also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32690954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32690954 from yesterday
- n3rd_1n_5pac3 4y ago“Due to a rare energy emergency that may affect the local energy grid, your temperature slider has been changed from 8:00 am — 8:00 pm because you enrolled in a Community Energy Savings program.” Specifically, one that offered them incentives in exchange for some degree of remote control over the smart thermostats. Those customers, for example, get a $100 credit at sign-up, and $25 each year. It seems that customers were aware of that because of the participation benefits
- Victerius 4y agoI bet most of them will cancel their participation in the program as fast as possible. Yes, they were aware of the consequences, but most people tend to believe that that won't happen because we live in a reasonable world.
- throwawaysleep 4y ago> but most people tend to believe that that won't happen because we live in a reasonable world. A company is giving away money for you to sign up and the reasonable thing is to assume it will never happen?
- Semaphor 4y agoHow is this getting downvoted? (currently gray) The only reasonable expectation is that it will happen, just like the comment said.
- InTheArena 4y agoActually, it said that it would be safe, intermittent and short. A 12 hour block, that I cannot override in a emergency is none of those things. source - live here and signed up for the program.
- throw827474737 4y agoCan you detail the emergency please? Do you guys realize that the alternative to things like this soon may be a blackout with much harsher consequences at some point? Soon we won't have those fixed prize contracts anymore anyway, and it is then again up to your full control to spend your full month salary for AC on a hot day in crisis times..
- InTheArena 4y agoYes, which is why I am working on getting solar added to the house, and go as much off the grid as possible.
- dbsights 4y agoCome on, the choice isn't just between conservation and blackouts.. This is only an issue because we sacrificed the reliability of the power grid for 'green' technologies. Forget enforced conservation or blackouts, I choose a reliable power grid, obviously, and that means ditching worthless renewables and building out proven technology.
- locutous 4y ago> Can you detail the emergency please? People who are sensitive to heat may need to cool down and 78 deg may not be cool enough. My wife is particularly sensitive to heat, as in hospitalization is possible if she gets over heated for too long. She very easily triggers heat stroke symptoms. And some days in the summer it's "run the AC full blast" whatever the temperature is set at. Sometimes that's even when we are down to 73 thermostat temp. Usually not that low but it has happened. 78 is frequently enough, but not always, many factors are involved. I won't touch this tech with a 10 foot pole. We require full control of the environmental controls.
- aperson_hello 4y agoBut the key point they're missing is that we live in a reasonable world because of these types of programs!
- pessimizer 4y agoIt seems to me that there is absolutely no way for the customer to be able to price the risk in this deal, and that the companies offering the program have a million ways to evaluate the risk, and possibly a bunch of contracts with other companies that completely lay off the risk. Far too much imbalance of information between vendor and customer intrinsic to the situation to allow this to be a legal agreement. I'm a fan of letting people make their own decisions, but letting them make their own decisions when there's no way they could make one with a positive expected outcome is just a legalized swindle.
- ethanbond 4y agoDoes this critique also apply to insurance? Actually does seem like another valid framing to the consumer: this is insurance against an outrageous bill for you, it’s insurance against grid failure for us (and you)
- sovnade 4y agoYou can opt back out at literally any time.
- throw827474737 4y agoLegalized swindle? Here take our money and just hope that what you trade it in for will never happen? If you don't want it to ever happen, just say no to this 100$, no? Seems pretty transparent.. Your thinking is especially confusing to me as I assume you are also a citizen of the land of the free, that usually favors self-sovereign and capitalism in all its flavors with all its consequences on much more apparent absurd levels? ;) But back to topic, can someone just set for me into relation how "bad" that was it all? It sounds like this was more a sweaty luxury annoyance and not life-threatening? And then this outcry seems to be absurd. Welcome to climate change and our general still accelerating resource wastage aa if there wouldn't be a future. In 20 years you will laugh about that, it'll only become much worse.
- throwawaysleep 4y ago> It seems to me that there is absolutely no way for the customer to be able to price the risk in this deal Here is $100. In exchange, if there is a shortage of energy, you will be a bit hotter or colder than you might normally want. You can quit the program at any time. What is so complicated there? This is no different than buying BBB rated debt or smaller company stocks. If this is too much for the average person, investment in nearly anything should also be banned.
- madaxe_again 4y agoSurely this can be circumvented by, say, lighting a candle next to the thermostat, or any other small heat source?
- ezfe 4y agoIt can be circumvented by not enrolling in the program that does this.
- hammyhavoc 4y agoOr by not purchasing third-party cloud-connected IoT products. For every convenience, there is inevitably a compromise.
- Semaphor 4y agoThe "convenience" here is that the users literally get paid for this remote control option. The company gives them money, so they can prevent excessive energy use in case of emergency… This is not a convenience compromise, it’s "get paid for inconvenience"
- hammyhavoc 4y agoThe "inconvenience" here is that their thermostat is "locked". Like I said: for every convenience, there is an inconvenience. It isn't going to please everybody, but where people draw the line as individuals is going to vary as much as preference for food and drink.
- ezfe 4y agoWell yes, but the convenience here isn't having an IoT thermostat, it's the $30 bucks they throw your way for allowing remote control.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
- csdvrx 4y agoIt reminds me of how my google nest resets the temperature range I've set, and then even within that range sometimes decides to tolerate large variations. I don't like sweating at night. I'm sure there must be a good reason, but next month the nest is going to end up on ebay (or the trash?) and be replaced by a "dumb" thermostat. The google nest was too smart for its own good :)
- ezfe 4y agoHave you looked at your schedule? I know a weirdly large number of people that don't realize their Nest has a schedule.
- csdvrx 4y ago> Have you looked at your schedule? Yes I did. And disable the eco function and other things. I've tried various combinations of settings. > I know a weirdly large number of people that don't realize their Nest has a schedule. I have spent 10 minutes, then 30 minutes, then 1 hour looking at every single menu option. Keeping temperature within a range shouldn't be rocket science. Sweating in the daytime is bearable. Sweating at night too isn't acceptable. Now this P.O.S. is leaving my home since it can't do its simple job right! It's got in chance, but like most google products outside ads/search/email, it's not worth my time or effort to try to make it work correctly (which at this point I doubt is ever possible)
- TheNewsIsHere 4y agoPlease re-sell or recycle it :)
- trentnix 4y agoI expect stuff like this will become compulsory in the near future. “For your own good”, of course.
- retrac 4y agoEvery jurisdiction already has a less-specific and mandatory version of this. When demand exceeds supply, they just start disconnecting loads from the grid, perhaps randomly.
- throwawaysleep 4y agoYep. They just start rolling blackouts.
- butlerm 4y agoEvery jurisdiction also has some sort of plan to generate or acquire enough electricity so they do not have to engage in rolling blackouts under normal circumstances, and a hot afternoon during the summer certainly counts as normal. If there is ever a blackout someone has failed their job description.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Scoundreller 4y agoMine can do voltage reductions. But of course that's only good for resistive loads. As far as I know, they've never done this, but it's a tool they have and test: https://www.ieso.ca/en/Sector-Participants/IESO-News/2021/12/IESO-to-Conduct-Routine-Voltage-Reduction-Test-on-February-1 https://www.ieso.ca/en/Sector-Participants/IESO-News/2021/12...
- EliRivers 4y agoIs it not for our own good? The whole grid collapsing and needing a lengthy, expensive restart process while everyone goes without electricity sure doesn't sound like a better option. Even Texas bit the bullet to prevent that happening. We already have the power to do this by just imposing rolling brownouts and blackouts; this is the same thing but not nearly so bad as outright power cutoff.
- verisimi 4y ago"But technocrats won't turn the power off!!" "Don't be ridiculous that 'smart everything' is about spying and putting even more power into the hands of unelected government officials!!"
- nwcs 4y agoKey point: “It’s a voluntary program,” Emmett Romine, vice president of customer solutions and innovation at Xcel, told local news station KMGH-TV. “Let’s remember that this is something that customers choose to be a part of based on the incentives.” This is fairly common with other utilities as well, my local utility did the same thing a few years ago.
- _fat_santa 4y agoFurthering the point, even at the bottom of the "Your Thermostat has Been Disabled" Message, they say that you can re-enable the thermostat by going online and opting out of the program. So if it's getting unbearable you can go online, opt-out and be back in control of your thermostat. EDIT: I just read that the temp was capped at 78, Colorado has low humidity so 78 here is much more comfortable than 78 in say Florida. Sure the message is culture war outrage fuel, but the underlying policy seems quite reasonable.
- InTheArena 4y agoExcept I have been trying to opt out for more then a year and half. I also tried again when this message popped up.It happened because I clicked enable on the ecobee app, and there is no effective way to cancel it. - source actually affected by this.
- _fat_santa 4y agoWell it is Xcel energy after all....
- ToniCipriani 4y agoActually it's not just them. I have it for my local area hydro company in Canada, it's the same thing. I can't find where to cancel at all. EDIT: So I did some digging, and it's confusing to say the least. In the app, it points you to the Google store page when you tap more info about the program. A search points to a page that tells you to contact your hydro company. On my hydro company's page, there is ZERO information about this, then a second search that landed me on Google Support page, which finally mentions the program is administered by some company in the US that is "partnered" with my hydro company, hidden deep inside the terms and conditions. And on that page, it says I actually have to call Google to unsubscribe.
- denimnerd42 4y agoThe county where we live is increasingly moving to unreliable sources of energy and changing their building code to mandate only electric sources. We're worried about a texas like winter grid emergency so we'll probably have to waste some money on a natural gas generator.
- linsomniac 4y agoAre you sure that the thermostat lock would, in this case, prevent the heating from being set above the freeze point? Because the way it worked in the situation cited here, residents were unable to set their thermostats below 78 degrees. In other words: The thermostat was not entirely disabled, allowing unlimited indoor temperatures, you just couldn't go lower than 78.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- josephcsible 4y agoIt was a lower limit this time because it was summer, so people wanted to run the A/C. The equivalent program in the winter will be an upper limit instead, since then people will want to run the heater.
- mistrial9 4y agoall-electric heating, cooking and cooling is part of a transition plan for lowering carbon emissions. Importantly, electricity sources can be substituted over time more economically, to replace more polluting energy. Serious cold is not the energy emergency they are talking about today, though your concern is for your very life, so respect to that of course. As your ancestors did, you have to look out for yourself first, acknowledged. The move to electricity is modern and not the enemy here though, IMHO.
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- blondie9x 4y agoWith climate change worsening and more demand for energy this is an unfortunate necessity to prevent the situation from getting even more worse than it already is. Until we have viable energy sources that are carbon free and sustainable without major risks like past nuclear implementations we need to get used to this or the problem will get far far worse.
- linsomniac 4y agoI live in CO and signed up for this program when it was first announced. I was pretty surprised to see the interview going around with the resident that was so mad about it, as mentioned it is a voluntary program. But, I am also probably biased: I signed up for it without knowing that they were paying me to do it; I was happy to cooperate in the case of grid stress, without knowing that I was going to get paid for it. This feels a bit like this guy is saying "Where is my freedom to make brownout or blackout?" :-)
- duxup 4y agoMy local utility has a voluntary program where they can shut down the AC for 20 to 30 minutes at a time. You save 15% on power during the summer months for participating. In 20 years I’ve only noticed it a couple times. It has been a good deal for me.
- Scoundreller 4y agoThe percentage off system is far better than many others that do $x/year or "free installation". Otherwise heavy-users don't opt-in, even though their participation would have the greatest effect.
- duxup 4y agoI agree. The % off also appeals to a sense of saving money passively / endlessly over time. That’s a good selling point.
- kurupt213 4y agoThis deal is worse than the Iran nuclear deal. Maybe the utilities should be crediting the value of the electricity the customer is ‘saving’ during these peak hour ‘crises’. The way this is written, there is nothing to disincentivize the utilities from creating artificial shortages because the people wholesale price for electricity is ‘too high’. The only way I can see for this to be balanced is to credit the retail value of the electricity being withheld from the customer.
- Scoundreller 4y agoToo hot inside? Fashion a bubble wrapper with a warm rock around your thermostat. Too cold inside? Fashion a bubble wrapper and an ice pack around your thermostat. Learned this at an employer that kept its thermostat under lock and key.
- kkfx 4y agoI'm not against regulating the demand in principle, I'm against IMPOSING the regulation from PRIVATE parties, no matter if this very specific case is an experiment on volunteers. We need to state the principle that ONLY public bodies can act on public, private parties can ASK, can eventually propose different tariffs to incentivize or disincentivize certain behaviors but MUST NOT have any control at all. The danger of founding a car who initially start to display ads, than make seeing them mandatory just to open the door, than get briked from remote is so high that any potential step in this direction must be nuked with an extraordinary excessive and fierce force. Beside that: a general regulation even from public bodies is an issue sometimes because you need mechanisms to avoid it, for instance for medical reasons case-by-case (in this thermostat settings case), but if such mechanism do exists surely get abused. So in the end my idea is that if something is needed but scarce than can't be private at all. So for instance TLCs, energy grid, water etc can't be given to private company at all if they can't guarantee full services all the time with the sole exception of extraordinary events that can't last more then a very little time (like a flood, a storm etc vs "eh, there is a global crisis who might last years").