Posted on 09/01/2022 6:42:58 AM PDT by george76
22,000 people lost control of temperatures in their homes for hours Tuesday..
DENVER — During the dog days of summer, it's important to keep your home cool. But when thousands of Xcel customers in Colorado tried adjusting their thermostats Tuesday, they learned they had no control over the temperatures in their own homes.
...
Xcel confirmed to Contact Denver7 that 22,000 customers who had signed up for the Colorado AC Rewards program were locked out of their smart thermostats for hours on Tuesday.
"It's a voluntary program. Let's remember that this is something that customers choose to be a part of based on the incentives," said Emmett Romine, vice president of customer solutions and innovation at Xcel.
Customers receive a $100 credit for enrolling in the program and $25 annually, but Romine said customers also agree to give up some control to save energy and money and make the system more reliable.
"So, it helps everybody for people to participate in these programs. It is a bit uncomfortable for a short period of time, but it's very, very helpful," said Romine.
This is the first time in the program's six year span that customers could not override their smart thermostats, Romine said. He said the "energy emergency" was due to an unexpected outage in Pueblo combined with hot weather and heavy air conditioner usage.
But Talarico said he had no idea that he could be locked out of the thermostat. While he has solar panels and a smart thermostat to save energy, he says he did not sign up to have this much control taken away.
"To me, an emergency means there is, you know, life, limb, or, you know, some other danger out there — some, you know, massive wildfires," Talarico said. "Even if it's a once-in-a-blue-moon situation, it just doesn't sit right with us to not be able to control our own thermostat in our house."
Agreeing to allow them to cut off your AC when you need it most is beyond stupid.
For some years I had a rental home in Fargo, ND serviced by Excel Energy. The phone number on my account was my landline at my home in Maine. On three occassions, I received calls at about 2 am saying the cold weather and subsequent high natural gas useage required a shut off of gas to my home for a period of time (I don’t remember how long).
I have 4 Smart Thermostats, Smart multi-zone control system, Smart Washer/Dryer and NONE of them have Wifi access TURNED ON. Wifi is only on for system firmware updates, then immediately turned back off.
Yep, those homeowners are stupid. Also tells you that the price of stupidity is $100 and $25/year after that.
By “locked out” do they mean the unit is shut off completely or the thermostat is raised, and by how much?
I had one of those Excel energy saver devices on one of my home AC compressors and since it was there when I bought the home and I had never authorized it, I forced Excel to remove it.
Hmmm?
Typically when gas is turned off all the pilot lights go out, requiring they all be re-lit lest the house fill up with gas while the home owner is out and ‘self-level’ when the homeowner returns and does something silly like turn on the lights or open the garage with an automatic garage door opener-upper...
I am sure you are right but I do remember the 2:00 am calls.
It’s just not smart to have smart appliances and meters in your house.
Excel would have to know with absolute certainty that ALL your gas appliances don't require a pilot light, your water heater, that old furnace in the basement, the gas stove, the space heater in the garage/workshop, everything.
So what was his response?
Time-of-day metering and premium charges for peak load periods is the most visible feature that will bite people hard.
Down the road, we may see targeted shutdowns of homes imposed as a penalty where the residents have offended the local government in some way.
the only thermostats to use are the round ones without electronics
they still sell them
get yours now.
Sounds accurate. I was thinking that they would have control over individual residences and would be able to make demands at some point and if you don’t comply...well too bad. You will lose power. Or, like in this article, possibly lock the meter somehow to where the resident cannot adjust the thermostat.
He did not have a response.
I still bought the door openers but never downloaded the App to hook them up to my phone.
Hey by the way, according to the Democrats there is plenty of power capacity for all of those new electric vehicles that people will be driving.... /sarc
Except when there are times like this. Probably about mid summer to late summer.
What are you supposed to do when the grid shuts down and you can’t charge your car?
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