But seriously… I signed up for a pilot program with Dominion Electric and today I got my new Internet-controlled thermostat. There’s a green-light on it, which when lit, will indicate that it is being controlled by the power company.
The guy who installed it told me that as part of the pilot program there are only five scheduled days this summer, on which the A/C will shut down for periods of about 7 minutes. That’s not enough that it ought to be a bother to anyone.
It’s hard to say what the next step might be. I suspect the reasoning goes like this: In case of a power-grid emergency they’d send out a signal to shut things down. I wonder if they’d have enough fine-tuned control to do shut-downs in a geographically rolling manner so that no one (and no one area) was without AC for very long. I also wonder if they’d be able to simply increase the temperature of people’s houses for certain heavy-use days, along the lines of, “Hey, we know you like to keep your pad at 68°, but how about you try 75° for a a few hours today foo’!”
If’n that’s how black outs are avoided, it sounds pretty good. Still, it’s more fun thinking about it happening to someone else. Me, I like wearing a parka inside the house while sipping hot chocolate in DC’s July.
I’m kidding. I like to kid my new thermostat overlords. They think it’s funny.
Right?
