Some Texas Power Companies are Remotely Raising Temperatures on Customers' Thermostats

[Dashinka 24,594]

Hmm, maybe those smart devices are not such a good idea.  Read the fine print for anything.

 

Some Texas Power Companies are Remotely Raising Temperatures on Customers' Thermostats

 

But some residents are waking up in a sweat to find their pre-set thermostat temperatures were going up. This was no malfunction, the adjustments were made remotely by their energy company to save power.

 

Some customers of CPS Energy opted into the WiFi thermostat Rewards program that provided a one-time $85 bill credit upon enrollment and a $30 annual bill credit at the end of summer with the use of a qualified WiFi-enabled thermostat, according to USA Today.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/some-texas-power-companies-are-remotely-raising-temperatures-on-customers-thermostats/ar-AALhidh

[yuna628 9,680]

They advertise those things all the time. No way is the power company touching my thermostat.

[laylalex 7,293]

Just now, yuna628 said:

They advertise those things all the time. No way is the power company touching my thermostat.

Same. We have a Nest smart thermostat at home and we get promo emails all the time from SoCal Edison, offering to save us money to control it remotely during periods of high demand. Nope! I already have enough of a power struggle at home regarding what the optimum temperature should be, but even he wouldn't be able to stomach it being more than about 78F inside during the summer.

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

32 minutes ago, laylalex said:

Same. We have a Nest smart thermostat at home and we get promo emails all the time from SoCal Edison, offering to save us money to control it remotely during periods of high demand. Nope! I already have enough of a power struggle at home regarding what the optimum temperature should be, but even he wouldn't be able to stomach it being more than about 78F inside during the summer.

The most I do is 80F inside during the day, and even then we have fans going on inside the house. If we didn't my wife might be cooking up some filipino bbq with me as the meat. 

[yuna628 9,680]

43 minutes ago, laylalex said:

Same. We have a Nest smart thermostat at home and we get promo emails all the time from SoCal Edison, offering to save us money to control it remotely during periods of high demand. Nope! I already have enough of a power struggle at home regarding what the optimum temperature should be, but even he wouldn't be able to stomach it being more than about 78F inside during the summer.

It has to be as cold as possible in my house at all times. Thankfully the husband has no argument about it either.

[laylalex 7,293]

2 minutes ago, yuna628 said:

It has to be as cold as possible in my house at all times. Thankfully the husband has no argument about it either.

I need it cold, too. My husband's answer to "it's too warm" is "take a cold shower," and "it's too cold" is "put on a jumper" or even "put on another jumper and why won't you wear socks?" Then again I grew up in a house with proper insulation and an HVAC system.

[yuna628 9,680]

3 minutes ago, laylalex said:

I need it cold, too. My husband's answer to "it's too warm" is "take a cold shower," and "it's too cold" is "put on a jumper" or even "put on another jumper and why won't you wear socks?" Then again I grew up in a house with proper insulation and an HVAC system.

I grew up with no AC, and for a while the only heat we had was the oven or space heaters (not really safe..). Summers in the city are stiflingly hot, but back then it was safe enough to leave the windows and doors open for ventilation, though it mostly didn't help. You'd sweat all day and night. If my husband said that, I'd probably direct him to the couch. 😉

[Dashinka 24,594]

2 hours ago, laylalex said:

I need it cold, too. My husband's answer to "it's too warm" is "take a cold shower," and "it's too cold" is "put on a jumper" or even "put on another jumper and why won't you wear socks?" Then again I grew up in a house with proper insulation and an HVAC system.

We make overall decisions based on the humidity, if the humidity is above 65%, and the temperature is above 23 C the AC is on, but if below, we can open the windows unless the outside temp is above 29 C, then the AC is on regardless.

[Crtcl Rice Theory 2,432]

[TBoneTX 45,536]

On 6/22/2021 at 3:53 PM, Dashinka said:

23 C

29 C

American-only outside the regional forums!  Reported!!!

[Dashinka 24,594]

5 hours ago, CanAm1980 said:

And put up more useless windmills and solar panels.

[Crtcl Rice Theory 2,432]

4 hours ago, Dashinka said:

And put up more useless windmills and solar panels.

The solar panels and windmills didn't take down the Texas grid, the Texas bureaucracy did that on their own.

[Dashinka 24,594]

54 minutes ago, CanAm1980 said:

The solar panels and windmills didn't take down the Texas grid, the Texas bureaucracy did that on their own.

The windmills did almost take down the grid recently when the wind died.  They were also a big factor that you wish to ignore from back in February.  The simple fact is when the temperature gets cold enough, windmills are power consumers rather than power generators.  I will agree, the Texas bureaucracy and all the incentives for unpredictable power sources were big factors, why Texas shut down good power generating to rely on unpredictable generating is beyond me, and that needs to be fixed.  I am all in favor of reducing all government bureaucracy.

 

 

Edited June 24, 2021 by Dashinka

[laylalex 7,293]

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-texas-wind-turbines-explain/fact-check-the-causes-for-texas-blackout-go-well-beyond-wind-turbines-idUSKBN2AJ2EI

Quote

 

During a historic cold snap that has left millions of Texans without electricity, water, and heat for days, claims that the state’s use of renewable energy sources, specifically wind energy, are to blame have circulated on television and social media. These claims are misleading, as they shift blame for the crisis away from what appears, so far, to be the root cause: record cold temperatures that affected generation and transportation across all fuel types (including, but not limited to, wind energy), combined with the inability of the state’s independent and isolated electricity grid (operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT) to source supplies from elsewhere.

...

In an official statement on Feb. 15, ERCOT said that “extreme weather conditions caused many generating units – across fuel types – to trip offline and become unavailable” (here).

As reported here by the Texas Tribune on Feb. 16, ERCOT said that thermal sources, such as coal, gas and nuclear, lost nearly twice as much power due to the cold than renewable energy sources, which contributed to just 13% of the power outages (here).

As temperatures drop to record lows, a phenomenon known as “freeze-off” is hitting parts of Texas hard, according to a report from The Verge (here). Due to natural gas wells and pipes that are ill-equipped for cold weather, “liquid inside wells, pipes, and valves froze solid.”

 

 

[Crtcl Rice Theory 2,432]

5 hours ago, Dashinka said:

The windmills did almost take down the grid recently when the wind died.  They were also a big factor that you wish to ignore from back in February.  The simple fact is when the temperature gets cold enough, windmills are power consumers rather than power generators.  I will agree, the Texas bureaucracy and all the incentives for unpredictable power sources were big factors, why Texas shut down good power generating to rely on unpredictable generating is beyond me, and that needs to be fixed.  I am all in favor of reducing all government bureaucracy.

 

 

 

And the windmills are causing the outages this summer how? 

 

And the reason Texas is connected to Mexico's grid but not the US east or west Grid? 

 

And the reason cold weather affected Gas plants?