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Comment by Scoundreller | Hacker News Reader

> it's to start allowing dynamic energy tariffs and getting people incentivized to move load to cheaper times.

That’s what they rolled out with them, but insufficient change to habits.

> I suppose AC/heating would use enough that it would be worth turning it down at certain times of day.

This is generally the big win, and why they’ve had to still create a program to subsidize smart thermostats and payments to enable the back off features.

Mass installing smart meters to incentivize the public at large to buy+install smarter thermostats is a less effective and more expensive strategy than giving the thermostats away and writing users a guaranteed cheque in exchange for remotely controlling it.

(There are other dynamics at play: electricity here is generally cheap and I pay more in fixed charges than consumption and the heating side is almost universally fossil fuel/wood but that’s achangin)

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> That’s what they rolled out with them, but insufficient change to habits.

If that's the case, then that means they didn't set the incentives strongly enough, or didn't educate people well enough about how they can save money. While people do grumble about their electricity bill, they might not realize that there are things they can do to reduce it.

Making up numbers here, but let's say the average/"real" cost of electricity is X. To incentivize different behavior, the utility sets the price for peak hours to X+20%, and drops the price during off-peak hours to X-10%.

They observe behavior for a few months. No meaningful changes in behavior. That just means people value their ability to not think about when they use electricity more than they value the cost savings.

So, set the incentives harder. Set peak hours to X+60%, and off-peak to X-30%. Observe behavior for a few months. Maybe people will start changing their behavior now.

Unless electricity is actually that much more expensive during peak you're falling into the trap of simply artificially making the world worse for the purposes of controlling people's behavior.

People aren't stupid and will immediately recognize when the prices aren't connected to reality and resent you more than change their behavior for you. Most workers don't have access to cheap electricity because they're not home during the daytime hours, and setting up an elaborate series of timers is a non-solution.

You'll never get people to vote for the "everyone's electric bill goes up because fuck you for having a job" bill.

I think electric cars could change this equation. The savings are high enough and the inconvenience low enough.

This is definitely the case - if you have a time-of-use tariff and an EV you charge at home, there's a strong incentive to schedule your charging to the cheapest time of day.

Especially if your EV could be smart enough to do that by itself.

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