The California Energy Commission recently proposed including government-controlled thermostats in new energy efficiency standards for new buildings in the state.
Customers could not override the thermostats during "emergency events," according to the proposal, part of a 236-page revision to building standards. The document is scheduled to be considered by the California Energy Commission, a state agency, on Jan. 30.The specific proposal can be found on pages 63-64 of this CEC document.The description does not provide any exception for health or safety concerns. It also does not define what are "emergency events."
During heat waves, customers crank up the air conditioning, putting severe strains on the state's power supply. By giving utilities the power to automatically adjust power demand by reducing air conditioning, the hope is that more severe interruptions, such as rolling blackouts, can be avoided.
As one might expect, the prospect that government officials could control home thermostats was quite controversial, and the California Energy Commission has backtracked . . . a little.
As initially proposed, these programmable thermostats would have deferred in emergencies to a radio signal from utilities, wresting control from customers.A more sensible way of disciplining household energy use would be through prices. In the marketplace, increased demand will produce higher prices. Adopting peak-load pricing or even surcharges would provide market signals to consumers and provide an incentive to reduce energy use during an "energy emergency," but it would leave consumers in control of their own energy use.After public protests, Chandler said the commission staff has suggested letting customers choose whether to accept the emergency control.
The staff will make the recommendation at the energy commission's Jan. 30 meeting in Sacramento. The changed proposal would be taken up at a later date.
"The consumer or customer can override the emergency control," with the change, Chandler said.
The radio system used by the utilities would notify customers of an energy emergency. If the customer did nothing, utilities could reset the thermostat to a higher temperature, but no higher than 88 degrees.
However, the thermostat will still include a radio control component that utilities could use with consumers' consent. That component will be a mandatory part of the thermostat, which can't be removed by the consumer.
Critics say they fear that requiring new homes to include a radio-controlled thermostat will make it easier to enforce mandatory controls later.
We can close comments now we have a winner. :)
Really? And who is going to pay for storage at Yucca in the next 400 million years?
But you can bet that would not be the case.
To be honest, I can look on this with some equanimity since my ox isn't gored. Not only is there the whole renter thing, but I generally don't even notice indoor temperatures unless they are very extreme. (I went over before posting to see where I had set my thermostats and found out that I still had the heat set to "off" where, I guess, it's been so far this clement mid-Atlantic winter. Apparently I'm fine with letting my neighbors pick the temperature that bleeds through the walls, ceiling, and floors into my apartment. I'd be just as insouciant about having it be the landlord or the government that did the job instead.) Pricing has zero effect on what I do (actually, what I usually forget to bother to do) with the thermostat.
Well, there is a significant question regarding the pricing of externalities.
Even so, a very large % of the pump cost of gasoline is taxes (state and federal). So, deferring the question of externality costs, the price of gasline is already higher than the total costs of gasline use.
My utility bill is exactly the reason I installed a programmable thermostat that automatically resets the temperature while I'm at work or asleep. (Also the reason I sealed air leaks in my doors and windows, and got blown-in insulation in the attic.) So yeah, I notice the price of energy, and it affects my behavior.
In other words, US utilities are under no legal code, fed or state, compulsion to provide either constancy, nor quality.
They can and do, for example, conduct rolling brownouts. This has the undesirable effect of resetting electronic equipment which can have a health and life safety effect.
They can and do conduct blackout load shedding, which can have an even greater health and life safety effect, unless you happen to live on the dedicated line to the hospital.
A wireless meter choke wouldn't work for the reasons above. Your A/C kicks on, the choke cuts power, everything resets.
The thermostat choke wouldn't work for a different reason.
The cut-off between public and private occurs at the meter.
If the public utility now extends into your thermostat, then the public utilities become responsible for your wiring too, and then, responsible for fires and mishaps caused by it.
Ain't gonna happen. The only option is a wireless flag that signals everyone's thermostat read-out of a low power event. People being people would disable the warning or ignore it.
Tiered pricing is proven that it *absolutely doesn't work*.
Tax credits. Pure and simple. As long as the utility bill is in your name, divide kWh by dependents living with you, and apply a tax credit based on that yearly rollup.
Home Depot and Lowe's energy installers would be jumping!
On the other hand I don't understand why I need to go outside to check my day-to-day electrical usage while the utility company can get that information via wireless. Wouldn't it be better to have a wifi transmitter in the meter that allows me to capture and analyze that information in my pc, while at the same time getting real-time tariff information from the supplier via the net? I could even compare different electricity suppliers to see if their savings claims meet the test of the real world.
Or maybe this already exists? Anybody knows?
Of course, it wouldn't require much in the way of legislation or bureaucracy, so a certain number of legislators and bureaucrats will need to find other things to do, which is likely to have various externalities, but that seems like a reasonable risk.
Failing that, surely it's possible to build some form of additional power generation (gas turbines, whatever) for use only during these emergency periods to provide the extra power, rather than resort to rationing.
As for nuclear.. if people are so worried about waste disposal (I seriously doubt the waste will be terribly dangerous after 100,000 years let alone 400 million - remember, the more radioactive something is the faster it decays), why not set up breeder reactors and recycle almost all of it? Oh, that's right, there were plans for that but the US Federal Government shut it down. Great. Thanks, Mr. Carter.
Sorry, I was raised in California and have never quite managed to fully clear the state's poisonous brand of bleeding-heart politics from my head to make room for a full understanding of how price caps hurt everyone by making resources wholly unavailable whereas market forces mean only a few people die because they can't cool their houses/afford the gas to evacuate ahead of Katrina/etc. and that's somehow preferable.
What a ridiculous plan, though. Where's Mr. Tuttle from Brazil when you need him?
Sure, of course. This way poor people, and elderly on fixed incomes can fry, while rich and middle class people can just adjust the levels to whatever comfort level they prefer.
If they're poor, it's their own damn fault anyway, so let'em die in their beds. It's what made America great!
11pm 62 degrees
530am 70 degrees
800am 60 degrees
430pm 68 degrees
Works like a charm and took 5 minutes to set up. I set it up once and let it go. Another program automatically takes over on weekends. If price throughout the day was available, I'd program that into the system, too.
Consider a device that plugged into the wall, and then you plugged the AC into it. If the price of electricity was transmitted through the electric wires, it could turn the AC on and off as a function of price.
Another option is price transmission over the internet. The home network could then control on/off boxes plugged into wall sockets. Give people the info and technology, and they will come up with all kinds of ways to save money without any personal cost. All this would reduce demand on the grid as a function of price, and would reduce the need for an automatic shutoff of Granny's AC in August.
Yes it might. What administrative nightmare must we invoke to provide a data base of user health conditions so that selected thermostats of vulnerable customers might be exempted from a general command?
My California PG&E bill includes information on which 'block' of power includes me, and various sources tell me when my block will be subject to blackout. Since that happens seldom, I'd certainly prefer that coarse a resolution, presumably somewhat related to actual usage, to giving some kind of command authority to a new administration. It's true the current 'rolling blackout' capability might also be inaptly or maliciously applied, but it does not seem likely to be done so on some kind of government initiative. Perhaps that indicates I have an excessive trust in PG&E; so be it.
Considering the French were able to figure out nuclear waste storage, how hard can it be? They don't even have desert waste areas to stash waste in.
You're presuming that the bureaucrats want and expect a marketplace to even exist. They don't.
They would also start buying electric storage devices to store electricity during the cheap times and would put up windmills and solar panels. These devices would not only reduce peak load, they could send power back to the grid when the price gets high enough. We could greatly reduce our energy independence with no government grants or coercion.
And enough with this pathetic whining about the poor. We aren't talking about pricing energy out of anyone's reach, just making it more expensive. So the poor might have to cut back on the fast food and put off buying that new big-screen entertainment system for a few months. Or they could just let the house get a little hotter and live in the same conditions that the whole freaking world lived in just a hundred years ago.
Kristian, I don't think so. Most of the cost of gasoline is the oil in it. It is remarkably cheap considering the processing and handling required.
Oil is in the $90 range and recently brushed 100. At 42 US gallons per barrel that's about $2.20 per gallon just to buy the raw material; not including getting the stuff to a US refinery. Here in flyover land it's selling for under $2.80. Federal gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon and state taxes range from 8 to 35 cents.
I doubt that gas taxes are sufficient to pay for the costs of the road and highway infrastructure that the use of gasoline requires.
(any petrolium engineers here who can more accurately guess the raw material cost of gasoline? given that it is about the most refined component from crude it has got to cost at least the BTU equivalent of a gallon of crude)
I see. So when all those elderly people die every year in the heat waves that we have each summer, they should just buck up and do without food or medicine to stay alive, right?
"So the poor might have to cut back on the fast food and put off buying that new big-screen entertainment system for a few months."
You forgot the welfare queen who buys steaks.
"Or they could just let the house get a little hotter and live in the same conditions that the whole freaking world lived in just a hundred years ago"
And you can't because you are so special? Oh that's right, sacrifice is for OTHER people to make, not you.
If people will pay for the power, why aren't the utilites simply giving it to them and pocketing the money? What's going on in California that's totally subverted the profit motive?
Actually, the economics here are somewhat questionable. Adjustment through prices works best when prices can affect long term demand and supply. If there are not enough widgets, raise the price so people will demand fewer widgets and there are more factories to build widgets.
Here, you are talking short term price spikes with little effect on long term demand or supply. As you say, these price spikes can be successful in curbing even temporary demand (if you raise prices enough), but they do significant harm as well. First, by increasing price volitility you decrease economic stability, which tends to decrease both consumer confidence and investment. Second, you will get complaints of "price gouging," and "heat profiteering" no different from other sudden and short-term surges in demand such as drought (water), crop failure (food), and war (everything). Third, you are completely ignoring the distributive consequences of using price to regulate demand of an essential good when there is no effect on supply. I realize your response may be that tax-and-redistribute is better than rationing, but taxes can only be raised so far. Which is why every government rations food and other essentials in war rather than tax and redistribute (in war, we might have just enough food for everyone, but if we don't ration the rich will eat like kings and the poor will starve unless we raise taxes enormously).
It works in Germany. They buy washer-driers with timers, and set the timers to start the machine after midnight when electric loads and prices are lowest.
It is more difficult to react to a price scale that varies day by day than to one that varies on a set schedule, but it just requires a little more use of existing technology. You need a control panel somewhere where you can go in and set price points and pick how your house systems react to prices crossing them. You can have it adjust the thermostat, cut off the hot tub heater, or advise you to turn off the home theater and leave the dishes and laundry until later. If the power companies really want to get these remote controls into the home, what they should do is to offer such controls on an internet site - and then, to make it work, you've got to put in their radio-controlled thermostat...
The best solution, IMO, would be to provide everyone (and certainly every new construction) with "Kill A Watt" (too lazy to link, search amazon) devices that are dynamically updated to reflect the latest price of electricity. When people see that their A/C unit is costing $1/hour (2500W @ .40/KWH - a high but not reasonable price during peak times). In fact, I would love such a device on my thermostat since my heating-oil bill is always totally random.
Moreover, I think that a lot of the solution will lie in the development of efficient ultra-capacitors to solve the peak/mean capacity problem (in brief, you have to build infrastructure to handle peak load but only get paid for mean load which is much lower).
Part of the increased price of oil reflects the sagging U.S. dollar: Since Bush's inauguration the euro has soared from 85 cents to $1.43
I doubt that gas taxes are sufficient to pay for the costs of the road and highway infrastructure that the use of gasoline requires.
Why should they be? Highway infrastructure benefits all of us. Even if you never drove, you'd still want your mail and UPS delivered to your house. Plus you'd probably like to be able to buy food and clothing instead of growing/weaving/knitting your own. As the Teamsters used to say, "If you got it, a truck brought it." And while trucks pay fuel tax, government vehicles like transit buses do not , nor do fire and police departments or the postal service.
Many adjusted daily. Some opted not to particpate. 10% shaving off peak load. Better power curve characteristics than central control because not everybody's adjustments hit at the same time.
The barrier to this is not end user willingnes to particpate, not technology, but utility unwillingness because their profits are determined by cost-based rate-of-return regulation. Many of the consumers in the study were retirees, so it was not a techno group. In other words, it is the regulators that prevent a market from developing.
The fact sheet on the GridWise Olympic Peninsula Project.
The final report on the GridWise Olympic Peninsula Project
Also, strange as it may seem, Utilities are in business to sell power, not to prevent its use.
A write-up from last May.
It actually makes me think of all the crazy people, inevitably from California, who call government offices claiming that some group or other is irradiating them by sending signals to their home appliances. Do we really want to encourage this sort of thing?
First off, those folks are everywhere. Second off, yes, you are completely right - this sort of thing encourages exactly the wrong sort of thinking.
Oh, and as good libertarians, how can you even dream of asking the government to force a power company to supply you with electricity when they don't want to? :-)
It would be nice if we could have political discussions without these chest-beating denunciations of anyone who would ask people to make economic tradeoffs as if having to give up one thing to have something else is a fate too horrible to contemplate.
The government has also given the power company a monopoly on the delivery of power to my house...
I don't know any welfare "queens", but over the years I have known several families receiving public assistance including food stamps or the newer debit-card equivalent. Some of them either don't know how to cook and shop effectively, or don't bother. Some do, and eat better for far less. They all get the same food budget per capita - and so I've seen everything from families living on TV dinners and Coca-cola for three weeks and then going hungry at the end of the month, to families filling up their freezer with steaks because their social worker got upset when they didn't use all their food stamps.
The funny thing is that the American public has forced the policeman out of the bedroom only for him to take up residence in our living room.
No doubt, now that you mention it, Americans thermostat settings will likely be included in the FBI's biometric database of the in-building temperatures we are allowed, and if we disobey we are likely to be remotely destroyed via that Verichip RFID implant we are all sure to be required to receive.
Central heat delivered as a city utility was first proposed by King Albert of Saxony, who found the unheated Dresden cathedral to be too cold. Building Dresden's system took from 1900 till 1928. It was destroyed during the war, rebuilt, then renovated a few years ago. Other systems exist in Hinterkranau and Flensburg, Germany; Basel, Switzerland; and Vienna and Lower Austria in Austria. According to the www.fernwaermewien.at website, utility-delivered heat is comfortable, reliable, and economical. It also wastes less energy, and reduces your carbon footprint. The Lower Austria system includes 271 heaters burning wood and wood scraps, and 9 burning straw.