California Utilities to Control Thermostats?

TeraBill writes "It seems that the California Energy Commission is looking to give utilities in the state the power to control the thermostats in private homes via a radio signal. The idea is that during times of significant energy crunch, the utilities could force thermostats to higher temperatures rather than having to implement a rolling blackout. The thermostats have been around for a while and new ones were on display at the CES show in Vegas this week. While I can see the argument for it, we just had a kid take over a tram system with a remote control, so how long before our thermostat gets hacked by the neighbors. And I'd almost rather have the power drop than have someone significantly raise the temperature in my home if I had a computer running there. (UPS and a graceful shutdown versus cooking something.)"

Comments

For those of us in cold climates...

[Bazman]

..remember that California is HOT. The thermostats referred to are connected to air conditioning, not, as I first thought, heating systems!

Re:For those of us in cold climates...

[Lars T.]

You want to know why Carter is believed to be the worst president? Start with Carters economic policies that caused 17% annual inflation, go from there. You mean the Inflation that started under Nixon? That later got under control because Carter appointed Paul Volcker as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, who was so good that even Reagan couldn't find anyone better?

Some places already do this. It's a good idea.

[Kludge]

http://www.cityofames.org/ElectricWeb/PrimeTimePower/Default.htm

Having everyone pulling power willy-nilly from a facility with limited output is a dumb idea. Regulating a more even amount of power to everyone is smarter.

Load management terminals

[ScottBob]

They already have a system like this in place in south Louisiana, some electricity co-ops use load management terminals, which look like a separate electric meter connected to the air conditioner. On hot summer days, they'll shut off the A/C for up to half an hour, to prevent overload to the grid and save money. They don't shut everybody's A/C off at once, they "roll" the shutoffs through the neighborhoods. It can be a bit of an inconvenience because of the temperature rise in your house, but if your house is well insulated, you won't notice it that much. The system is totally voluntary, and you even get a minor rebate on your electric bill.

They want sockets to have Internet addresses too

[MichaelCrawford]

Quite a while back, maybe ten years ago or so, I read that the Electric Power Research Institute was proposing that each power and light socket have a unique IP address so that they could be remotely controlled by the power company, for the same reason as given here - to reduce consumption at peak times, and to prevent rolling blackouts.

That wasn't feasible at the time, as they would have quickly run out of available addresses, but now with IPv6 that's not such a problem anymore. I expect that the proposal will resurface again soon.