I received an email yesterday asking me to reduce my electric use at peak time between 3 and 6 PM. I lowered my AC temperature earlier and turned it off at 3 PM. Unfortunately I had been out paddling and was wearing damp clothes on return so I forgot to turn it back on until the inside temp got
the temp down a couple of degrees.
-- Rick C
A friend had a thermostat that the power company could control. But if you give it a bit of thought you will realize either your A/C or heat won't be able to maintain temperature or this is pointless.
Thermostats cycle the system on and off to achieve a duty cycle that maintains a given temperature in the home. Statistically a given neighborhood will have some units on and some off resulting in a fairly constant average load. Switching off a neighborhood for say 15 minutes will result in many more units turning on when the system restores operation resulting in the *same* average load. The only thing that changes is that every A/C in the neighbor hood will be switching on at the same time.
Switching off a neighborhood for much longer than 15 minutes will result in all the homes having temperatures outside of the set point range. In other words, users will be getting hot (or cold depending on season).
How is that any different than just setting the thermostats back?
-- Rick C
I think the idea is that most people would not mind if the temperature is a bit above/below the setting when in exchange they keep getting power for other appliances and lighting. The alternative would be a complete blackout for part of the users.
Of course only when it happens occasionally and not too long at a time.
Programmable thermostat.
A couple days ago the electric company sent an email asking us to cut back our electric usage between 3 and 6. I cut off my A/C after cranking the
those three hours, but it was a bit cloudy today even if the outside temp
didn't mind it so I programmed my thermostat to drop the temp around noon and cut it off between 3 and 6 every day. We'll see how that works out for me. If it gets much above 80 in the house I won't like it, but 80 is ok. I should rig up a recorder.
a big help in the summer to moderate temperatures during the peak power usage time.
-- Rick C
stick a small heater (maybe 0.25W) under/inside the thermostant and switch it using a timer switch.
-- This email has not been checked by half-arsed antivirus software
Or I can use the programming feature of the thermostat...
I remember the early days of setback thermostats. The low cost ones were exactly that, a small heater with a timer that you mounted under the thermostat.
-- Rick C
The X10 programmable thermostats were exactly that.
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