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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

These programs are optional. Google's Nest (among others) integrates with utility signaling to perform this shedding, and it's typically allowable for you to enable cooling and override the load shedding activated during peak demand (in the programs I'm familiar with).

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The smart thermostats BGE offers allow only two overrides per day, iirc 30 or 60 min each. Not sure on that part, but the specific period isn't so much at issue as that somebody else has the privilege of deciding when I am allowed not to swelter.

(I saw some mention of a "smart switch" also installed under this program, which I assume is there to prevent "overriding" the meter by just yanking it off the wall and shorting the contacts.)

> Not sure on that part, but the specific period isn't so much at issue as that somebody else has the privilege of deciding when I am allowed not to swelter.

You signed up for a discount for them to have permission to adjust your AC condensing demand run time when necessary, correct? I have never heard of a mandatory residential load shedding program in the US, but that doesn't mean they might be out there.

https://bgesavings.com/programs/ac/

> BGE‘s PeakRewards Air Conditioning program helps prevent the need for additional power plants, keep down the overall cost of electricity and ease the burden on Maryland’s electricity delivery system as the state’s population continues to grow. Plus, participants receive up to $100 in BGE bill credits each summer (June – September).

> The PeakRewards program is completely voluntary and is open to all BGE residential customers with central air conditioning or an electric heat pump in good working order, regardless of their choice of electricity supplier.

There's occasionally rolling blackouts. Those are mandatory load shedding.

> You signed up for a discount for them to have permission to adjust your AC condensing demand run time when necessary, correct?

No. You're right that the program is (currently) voluntary; I haven't volunteered, not least because I run the AC at 76°, I have and know how to use ceiling fans, and most months the bill barely breaks $150 if that - my house is 140 years old, and while that's not enough especially in Baltimore to say that its survival proves it is well designed, it is well designed.

This is targeted at two groups of people: fools who paid far too much for far too little and ended up house-poor in a place built last year that doesn't know how to stay cool, and folks for whom $100 a month makes a huge difference. One of those groups has my sympathy, especially because I expect they'll be first and hardest hit when these programs cease being voluntary because the state isn't investing enough in generation capacity and the city isn't investing enough in grid maintenance.

So you haven't even tried the program but you say it causes people to "swelter"? How do you know? And the rebate is "up to" $100, not $100.

If you're sweltering then maybe something is wrong with your setup. I've been on Rocky Mountain Power's version of this program for seven years and have only noticed that it's one or two degrees hotter than it should be maaaybe three times. In seven years.

Why don't you just unenroll from the program? I only get a $30 rebate per year. You make it sound like someone's holding a gun to your head and making you live in hell.

I get that, I was just pondering the fraudulent possibilities of netting the discount while subverting any control the utility would take over your HVAC equipment.

You have to have a smart meter to qualify for the program, so it's not like they can't tell if you cheat from consumption data.

Just put a heated blanket on it if you need to override

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