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To: EBH

$100 plus $25 / year isn’t nearly enough for that risk.


2 posted on 09/08/2022 9:18:02 AM PDT by old-ager
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To: old-ager

Here is some nice shiny objects sign here.


49 posted on 09/08/2022 9:56:27 AM PDT by ronnie raygun
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To: old-ager
Yep…. The $$$ compensation for surrendering this control to the power company is laughable. Heck, it's a scam. There's a previous threed on this. My 34 post there goes into some detail on my previous experience with a more sophisticated consumer grade smart thermostat.

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4090380/posts

The below goes into a different aspect that is well within a rapid rollout capability by power companies.

In the early 1990s, I lived in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains. My home was one of two houses in town used for R&D purposes by the regional electric company. I don't know what kind of installed cost the power company incurred on my house but if I was using available industrial grade hardware of the day, I could have set it up for about $5000 installed max, probably less. Today, I could do the same thing for about $500 installed max, probably less.

Here's why I consider this a scam…. 22,000 customers @ $25/yr each ~~> $550,000/yr recurring cost

IMO, this is throw away $$$ to avoid building sufficient power generation to accommodate normal peak + emergency reserve loads. A much better system would be to expand to consumers, the same variable electric rate structure that large industrial and business customers use.

Best that I recall, my variable rates were something like low@$0.005/kWh through emergency@$0.12/kWh. Low, medium and high rates depended on the day of the week and time of day. Emergency rate could be triggered anytime, any day.

My Virginia home in the mountains was 2-story, about 3000ft2 and total electric. With a conventional single rate and single temperature setting and no hot water heater on/off control, the winter monthly cost for the home would have been about $300 and occasionally more. My home's winter electric cost was about $90max and normally less. IMO, consumers (and small/medium business) are scammed on our electric cost via denying us access to variable rates.

There are freestanding, programmable, non-smart thermostats readily available that enable simple settings for different days and times. These have a reasonably short payback time, are installable by a handy homeowner and are generally available at Home Depot and hardware type stores.

92 posted on 09/08/2022 1:43:57 PM PDT by Hootowl99
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