This one kind of makes sense at least. Ideally the power company should have planned ahead, of course. But allowing their thermostats to get to 88 - hot but still manageable - averted the far worse option of rolling blackouts.
Yeah, in this particular situation, this might be the lesser of two evils. But, the true solution would have been them actually knowing what they’re doing and having sufficient reserve capacity, like a utility is supposed to have for this exact reason.
It sounds like this is fairly cheap to implement. I imagine the utility just pays for software from a vendor that integrates in with the consumers’ existing smart thermostats. From there, it’s just the cost of the incentive payments.
This one kind of makes sense at least. Ideally the power company should have planned ahead, of course. But allowing their thermostats to get to 88 - hot but still manageable - averted the far worse option of rolling blackouts.
Yeah, in this particular situation, this might be the lesser of two evils. But, the true solution would have been them actually knowing what they’re doing and having sufficient reserve capacity, like a utility is supposed to have for this exact reason.
exactly, they spent time and money doing this instead of investing in infrastructure 🤦♂️
It sounds like this is fairly cheap to implement. I imagine the utility just pays for software from a vendor that integrates in with the consumers’ existing smart thermostats. From there, it’s just the cost of the incentive payments.