Smart Thermostats Pitched For Texas Homes To Relieve Stressed Grid

It’s not much of a secret that Texas’ nearly completely isolated grid is in a bit of a pickle, with generating capacity often being handily outstripped during periods of extreme demand. In a latest bid to fight this problem, smart thermostats are being offered to customers, who will then participate in peak-shaving. The partnership between NRG Energy Inc., Renew Home LLC, and Alphabet Inc. will see about 650,000 of these thermostats distributed to customers.

For customers the incentive would be mostly financial, though the details on the potential cost savings seem scarce. The thermostats would be either a Vivint (an NRG company) or Google Nest branded one, which would be controlled via Google Cloud, allowing for thermostat settings to be changed to reduce the load on the grid. This is expected to save ‘300 MW’ in the first two years, though it’s not clear whether this means ‘continuously’, or intermittent like with a peaker natural gas plant.

Demand curtailment is not a new thing, with it being a big thing among commercial customers in South Korea, as we discussed within the topic of vehicle-to-grid energy storage. Depending on how it is implemented it can make a big difference, but it’ll remain to see how regular consumers take to the idea. It also provides more evidence for reducing grid load being a lot easier than adding grid-level storage, which is becoming an increasingly dire topic as more non-dispatchable solar and wind power is added to the grid.

18 thoughts on “Smart Thermostats Pitched For Texas Homes To Relieve Stressed Grid

  1. It seems counterintuitive that plugging in tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of additional devices could save energy. Personally I’m not sure I like the idea of giving a company that looks to save money control over my heating or let them have the ability to turn off my fridge freezer when it suits them.

    1. The idea is pretty simple; When the grid is overburdened, you try to lower the thermostat to use less heat (and corrospondingly draw less energy from the grid). In times of energy excess, you then heat, and would pay less per BTU, compared to those other times. The capital investment for the device would be a few huundred dollars perhaps. Do you not think this much could be saved? Why is this “counterintuitive”?

      1. Maybe the Texas energy companies could spend some money on improving their grid along with increased energy production instead of lining the pockets of their billionaire investors?

        Nah. That’s a dumb idea.

    2. Traditionally, the utility would have a relay that could break the signal for your HVAC system to curtail the outdoor unit in 15 minute intervals per hour. With the advent of connected thermostats, the shift has been toward setting the temperature back by 3 degrees F. They get the reduction without completely shutting the equipment off, at least not for a long period of time. There is a reduction in comfort, but not a complete shutting off of the equipment for long periods of time. The user can adjust the setpoint at any time, with the caveat that they don’t get credit for participation in that particular ADR (Automated Demand Response) event.

  2. I like the idea here, seems like a good partial solution to the overtaxed grid. But a cloud connected off the shelf domestic thermostat with a 3rd party remote control actively enabled to make it work for load shedding seems like a network security nightmare. At least for most folks who won’t know how to isolate the devices they can’t really trust from the rest of their network.

    I don’t mind a ‘smart’ meter that reports use too much, as they only get to know your homes power consumption of the moment, which is at best for an attacker an inaccurate are you home indicator (one of many) and are usually at least not connected to your home network (regular RF or Cellular phoning home seems to be the norm to me). And so the reverse of that where the grid can send out its ‘units 1-25 please shed’ message as it needs would be IMO the right method. The energy company will know if the shedding is taking place as they get the smart meter data to pay whatever fiscal incentive to the customer.

  3. Texas produces 23% of its energy from wind and 2% from solar. When extremely cold air from Canada settles over Texas in a rare event and the wind turbines have no wind or freeze up and the solar panels are covered with snow, they are already short of energy when they need it most. Further, their inadequately insulated natural gas infrastructure froze up. Since they aren’t attached to the national power grid, they couldn’t suck power from other states that didn’t virtue signal with wind and solar to compensate.

    About that virtue signaling, I fixed the title [in brackets]:

    China is building six times more new coal plants than [all other] other countries [combined], report finds – March 2, 2023

    https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-six-times-more-new-coal-plants-than-other-countries-report-fin

    “Everybody else is moving away from coal and China seems to be stepping on the gas,” she says. “We saw that China has six times as much plants starting construction as the rest of the world combined.“

    CO2 by country:

    https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/US%20China%20fossil%20fuels.png

  4. When I lived in Maryland, SMECO (local power coop) was doing something similar, though the thermostats weren’t smart. I think maybe they were getting commands over RF? Or possibly they were just pre-programmed. I’m not entirely sure how it worked, I was just renting a room at the time. Unfortunately for me, my hours didn’t always quite align with what the device expected, and I often came home in the summer to a very hot house with no way to do anything about it other than wait it out.

    I think in this specific case, my roommate/landlord ended up finding that it was actually cheaper to not participate in the program, as the place was getting far too hot during the “off” hours and taking too much energy to cool back down when the system came back on. Ultimately he ended up with a Nest, when they were relatively new, and set a less aggressive program for energy savings when the place was unoccupied during the day.

    Presumably with a properly insulated dwelling, and a properly balanced HVAC system, this idea would work better. But nothing about that place inspired confidence in it’s design or construction.

  5. Nice, the war over thermostats is being carried outside of families. Dad: sorry, kids, Energy Corp aka Elon says we can do only 18°C. Here’s a pair of socks mom just finished knitting, and who’s turn is it to go and collect wood in the near forest?

  6. Actually, a lot of electric energy is literaly wasted on flush toilets. Millions upon millions of pumps working to pump water up only so it can be flushed down the drain. The solution is easy, instead of current system there should be a solution where every street has only one major canal (without endpoints to individual homes). If you need to go, you go outside, open the flap and dump it straight to canal where flow flushes the stuff to sewage treatment plant. No need to pump water, no need to flush, just needs people to open up.

  7. Weird way to try and fix such a weird problem.

    Maybe just connect the grid to the surrounding ones or build another power plant? i too think its a bit odd to have a thermostat that can be controlled by your local government as a “fix” for bad infrastructure

  8. Is there a subscription for NEST thermostats? I’m asking for a friend… Anyway, standing this whole system up is going to be a serious effort, as every house is different, every Internet configuration is different (but mostly the same) every heater configuration is different, etc. What happens to people that just have their phones for Internet and no wifi? What happens when a customer can’t self install? What happens when the climate control system doesn’t have a 24v power line going to the thermostat location? Or the installer realizes that the thermostat is actually next to the door to outside? Is there going to be a new building code? It’s a great idea, but I think the actual utilization is going to be a lot lower than everyone hopes and more expensive than anyone can dream.

  9. SoCal Edison has been doing this for ages here in California. It’s a form of rationing when there’s not enough electricity to support demand. It’s voluntary and you get a small credit on your bill. If enough customers participate you can avoid rolling blackouts.

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