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Comment by hmcdona1 | Hacker News Reader

If I'm reading this right, my thermostat's "rush hours" seem to be scheduled for gross load peak. They then seem to usually end (and kick my AC back to a desired temp causing a ton of usage) right around net load peak...which this is now reporting is when energy prices go through the roof.

So basically the "rush hour" program has likely been costing me more money than if I just ignored them to begin with up to this point. I do realize these programs are primarily about limiting peak gross load and not saving individuals money but maybe I won't go out of my way to abide by them now...

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Maybe this is obvious, but make sure to check your rate structure with your energy company. Just because market prices are high later in the day doesn’t mean that’s when your prices are highest.

While this is true for much of Texas. I happen to live in a city that still has a public operator. So we just get more generalized flatter rates. I haven't looked into the details of my plan closely in a while as a result though, so you might be right.

En masse though, it seems not ideal from a cost perspective the way things have been scheduled up until now. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that it might be adjusted better in the future.

Sorry for the late reply. That all makes sense. And it’s definitely possible that your power company’s rate structure isn’t really optimal for them (or the market, or you). Electricity rates seem to be generally messy and a mix of big compromises, in my experience.

After giving my electricity provider access to my EV for optimal charging pretty much killed the 12v battery (they were pinging it hundreds of times an hour, meaning it never went to sleep), I'm never going to give them access to anything.

I had no idea this was a thing that could happen, I thought (naively, I suppose) that all they'd get would be the equivalent of a meter reading with a suggestion to limit load at certain hours.

Next day load shapes are predictable, so devices should optimize their charging accordingly.

Which utility was this? That reeks of gross incompetence.

Reliant, in Houston

You can setup the integration in the app, but disconnecting requires you to send an email with absolutely zero acknowledgment that it's not going straight into /dev/null

My rush hour went off yesterday afternoon and the temp rise made me doze off and i woke up sweating with it set to 80 degrees. I'm in the process of canceling, it's not easy. I used the chat and someone is going to send me an email (which says it's canceled?) within 24-48 hours.

Harder to turn off than anything else in recent memory. If anyone has a pro tip on an easy way to cancel let me know.

Just connect the wires manually To turn on the fan and AC, you'd connect R and Y (or R, G, and Y on systems where the thermostat controls the fan).

For real, you have to hotwire your AC for manual operation?

You can change the temperature after rush hour starts. I'm talking about turning off the rush hour crap entirely.

They got back to me and wanted to do a phone call to unenroll me. I told them they could do it without speaking to me since I don't have any power in the process, so we got to skip the phone call. I'm officially out of rush hour.

Don’t do this, a cheap non-programmable thermostat is a better option and inexpensive.

Wire them both up so that your cheap thermostat provides hard upper and lower limits.

Your HVAC doesn't care where it gets a 24V signal. An open relay won't mind being energized from the "wrong" direction. AFAIK, thermostats won't tattle.

When I had them hooked into my EV, I literally had to change my Kia password when they ignored my requests to disable the feature.

Presumably they similarly have some sort of cloud permission into your thermostat, which can be disabled by changing the password, resetting the device, or worst case scenario, get a new thermostat.

> If I'm reading this right, my thermostat's "rush hours" seem to be scheduled for gross load peak. They then seem to usually end (and kick my AC back to a desired temp causing a ton of usage) right around net load peak

Either you are not reading it right, or there is a problem with your thermostat's demand response schedule, because the only way demand response makes money (hence rewards for users) is by reducing demand during net load peaks, because that completes with the high marginal cost of fossil spinning reserves.

Demand response also targets gross load because (assuming the renewables are not entirely rooftop solar) that electricity still needs to be carried by wires to consumers.

Sizing transmission for the absolute yearly peak is not cost effective, so various schemes are used to reduce that peak, including efficiency improvements and demand response.

This is entirely separate from questions of renewable cost and carbon and pollution and makes economic sense even on 100% fossil grids.

> Sizing transmission for the absolute yearly peak is not cost effective, so various schemes are used to reduce that peak, including efficiency improvements and demand response.

Nonetheless, voluntary curtailment of demand by consumers (for any objective) must be compensated, right? And generally speaking, demand response curtailment (especially on shorter notice) is compensated at a higher rate than peak energy rates (4x in my area). It shouldn't be the case that one spends more money by participating in a demand response program that not participating, which is what the OP implied.

Austin Energy? There aren't many providers that I am aware of in Texas that have variable rates.

Austin Energy does Tiered Usage billing, not time-of-use, for residential customers.

See powertochoose.org for examples.

In my experience these programs are terrible in Texas, which is surprising given how advanced the data and services around the grid are there.

I briefly tried out the thermostat program and it was honestly trash. It was near impossible to unsubscribe too.

It seems like it would be more grid efficient to use more power at 3-5pm to cool your house to temperature early while solar is still high in availability then to rush and cool from 5-6 when you get home. The current rate structure for anyone not paying spot rate does not incentivize that of course.

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