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Comment by midjji | Hacker News Reader

Power is far to abstract and far to cheap for people to make even the slightest adjustment to their habits. After all, lets say you knew that making your morning coffe between 07-08 cost 10 cents more than doing so an hour earlier or later, would you get up earlier, or go to work latter? And in 1 cent is more realistic.

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Sure, but again the example was washing clothes, and clothes dryers use a LOT of energy.

Holy crap, doing the math a US style dryer would cost ~1.50 in electricity in Germany to dry one load of clothing.

Sources: https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/Germany/electricity_price... https://www.thespruce.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-run-an-el...

So, like, you know, yeah. My dryer has a delay start function on it, if late night prices are 1/2 peak, then I'd save 75 cents a load. Let's say 3 days a week of laundry, $9 a month in savings.

Again, my dryer already does this, it isn't new tech, it is just nudging me to make use of the existing button that is already there!

US electricity prices are so low, eh, not really worth it for the state I live in.

Most people in Germany do not have an electric dryer.

Also, electricity prices are not the same everywhere. My parents for example pay only 20 ct/kwh (I have no idea how they got that contract, especially since they moved only last year. They have low overall usage though (2,000 kWh/a, with fixed cost being like 30% of the total bill)

Having a dryer is not the same as using it for all loads. Sometimes you need quick access to clothes. Work, spilling accident, not enough room for natural drying. In summer, if you can dry safely outside, that is a far better option.

One good example is electric car charging... all the EV owner has to do is opt in, and an algorithm can do the rest.

I don't think this is true. My (Dutch) mom used to wash at night and in the weekend because of reduced tariffs. She is very energy conscious on general. Not everyone is oblivious to these things, especially less well off people.

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