Will The State Of California Control Your Thermostat?
In what I characterize as a stunningly invasive intrusion into our homes the state is about to mandate that each new home and each newly renovated or remodeled home in California be fitted with a “programmable communicating thermostat” or PCT
What’s being proposed is a revision to Title 24. Title 24 is a 236 pages of state-mandated standards for building energy efficiency. Most of the time these standards and regulations are designed to help, unfortunately, this particular intrusion into the sanctity of our homes is not one of them. Energy Commission’s newly-proposed rules about your thermostat (PDF, see pages 63-64)
(c) Thermostats. All unitary heating and/or cooling systems including heat pumps that are not controlled by a central energy management control system (EMCS) shall have a Programmable Communicating Thermostat (PCT) that is certified by the manufacturer to the Energy Commission to meet the requirements of Subsections 112(c)(1) and 112(c)(2) below:
1. Setback Capabilities. All PCTs shall have a clock mechanism that allows the building occupant to program the temperature set points for at least four periods within 24 hours. Thermostats for heat pumps shall meet the requirements of Section 112(b).
2. Communicating Capabilities. All PCTs shall be distributed with a non-removable Radio Data System (RDS) communications device that is compatible with the default statewide DR communications system, which can be used by utilities to send price and emergency signals. PCTs shall be capable of receiving and responding to the signals indicating price and emergency events as follows.
A. Price Events. The PCT shall be shipped with default price-event offsets of +4°F for cooling and -4°F for heating enabled; however, customers shall be able to change the offsets and thermostat settings at any time during price events. Upon receiving a price-event signal, the PCT shall adjust the thermostat setpoint by the number of degrees indicated in the offset for the duration specified in the signal of the price event. The PCT shall also be equipped with the capability to allow customers to define setpoints for heating and cooling in response to price signals as an alternative to temperature-offsetting response, as described in Reference Joint Appendix JA5.
B. Emergency Events. Upon receiving an emergency signal, the PCT shall respond to commands contained in the emergency signal, including changing the setpoint by any number of degrees or to a specific temperature setpoint. The PCT shall not allow customer changes to thermostat settings during emergency events.
What exactly is a PCT:
California continues to push forward with revisions to its Title 24 Building Energy Efficiency Standards that will mandate a programmable communicating thermostat (PCT) for all new residential buildings. PCT's are thermostats that receive price or electric system reliability signals, and can be programmed by the customer to automatically reduce energy consumption through thermostat set-point adjustments. This initiative will be effective beginning in 2009.
PCTs are part of California’s strategy to develop a statewide demand response system that can be used to encourage a more informed and empowered customer base. In time, such a system is expected to reduce system costs and prevent system disruptions. Other North American states and provinces are closely watching the California Title 24 initiative with interest in adopting similar programs.
This kind of big brother control over your home should frighten the bejesus out of you, I know it does me. If for any reason the state-regulated utilities deem that there is an “emergency”, they can do anything they want to your air conditioner or heater!
Exactly who or what entity gets to decide what an “emergency” is? With absolutely no override capability the home owner has zero control to change these settings. I guess that’s just too bad for the elderly sweltering in the summer heat?
This technology isn’t new, In fact, the utilities were offering discounts to those buyers who voluntarily installed these thermostats. So it begs the question, why is the state government here mandating these units?
Now, this is all an effort to mitigate the effects
of high power draw in the hot summer months, when people are running their air conditioners. In the past, these situations have resulted in rolling blackouts and much political strife from the constituents. Those of us who have some economic sense and a history of California would point out that most of the woes this is intended to solve are the unintended consequences of California’s royally incompetent regulation and “de”regulation of their energy sector. Screwy regulatory hurdles, NIMBYism, and lobbying have resulted in a system which has completely destroyed any semblance of a market, and artificially limited increases in supply which might have kept electricity plentiful and prices low. Instead of fixing the problem, they’re simply adding another layer.
This idiocy needs to be stopped immediately so I urge any and all Californians to contact the “process administrator” of these proceedings, your local legislator. and demand they put a stop to this nonsense. Complaints need to be registered by January 30th!
- Steven Foley's diary
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Comments :
How long before a hack?
How long before someone figures out how to hack "communications device that is compatible with the default statewide DR communications system"? I'd guess that blocking or mimicking the signal would be the easiest way.
The whole price signal thing is cool. The "emergency" takeover is scary. I wonder if the authorities (or pranksters) would be able to target this thing on a house-by-house basis.
I'm sure that a tyrant would love to have the ability to freeze out any opposition with a system like this. The energy grid itself would give a tyrant a fair amount of power, but it never hurts to have the ability to apply more targeted punishments.
Update: From the article: "addressability in PCTs would allow for the isolation of very small and
geographically focused loads."
Also note that they consider "extreme emergencies" to be an annual event. I thought we lived in a civilized country.
Update2: The discussion in the first link is pretty good. Someone even proposed a few possible hacks. I was dumbfounded by one commenter who said "The so called button would be pushed only in extreme times of scarcity, which occur infrequently." How can anyone so blithely make blanket statements about human behavior. Perhaps she believes that the US military will only be used for national defense!
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." --Frederick Douglas
The problem steve
I don't find it particularly frightening, frankly. It seems like a prudent move for a nation that is headed into an energy crunch.
Funny, I seem to recall that we had the elderly exposed to heatwaves previously and it had nothing to do with some supposed central authority. instead it had to do with the energy companies screwing their customers as hard as possible.
Gee, you don't think the behavior of the profits-uber-alles crowd could have anything to do with this, do you?
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
mandatory participation is unnecessary (probably)
Do you think this system would be immune to influence from the "profits-uber-alles" crowd?
In general, I think these smart thermostats are a great thing, and a great step towards managing energy demand to avoid the rolling blackouts and such.
However, much of the benefit is being thrown out of the door by making this mandatory. There's a good discussion on that EnergyPulse article, where they make a couple of points:
I'm not an economist, so my opinion surely is not the final word. However, I've seen no indication that CA did a thorough economic analysis to see if it was really necessary to mandate these changes. Like many mandates, this appears to be nothing more than a control-freak demanding to be obeyed. Maybe someone who actually lives in CA would like to look into this some more.
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." --Frederick Douglas
No.
No, what this system does is allow the state to soften some of their most egregious abuses. If they ramp your power bill at odd moments because, you know, they feel like it, the system compensates by reducing power usage.
When they cause rolling blackouts again the system can put air condition energy usage to minimal to save it for things like, say, hospitals.
I don;t find their arguments compelling, it sounds like exactly the kind of thinking that got us here in the first place. Industry incentives simply do not work. The whole point of deregulation was that you;d get rid of government oversight and the power companies would behave because of the "invisible hand of the market." It was bull&^%$, and the system went to hell almost immediately.
This should surprise nobody.
You put way too much faith in economics.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
to much faith in economics?
Of course, nobody's word is the final word. I assume you know that.
Are you suggesting that we regulate an economic system using only our own whims, and don't bother to collect actual data about what works? That seems to be the norm for government action.
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." --Frederick Douglas
Data is good
the issue here is whether you feed that data into the black box of modern economics. That is to say whether you turn perfectly useful data over to the gibberish machine.
As I have argued before economics, as a science, is currently on par with astrology and alchemy.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Not that far
I wouldn't go that far. It ranks up there with the social sciences (political science, sociology, and "soft" psychology) with respect to it's ability to predict the future, but it's nowhere near the hard sciences like biology, physics, chemistry, et al.
I never broke the law; I am the law! --
George W. BushJudge DreddI'm listening to...
Uh, yeah, about that...
political science, sociology, and psychology are also on par with alchemy and astrology. So you are half right.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
the value of economics
First, who generates that data if not economists?
Second, I agree that economics, as a social science, faces many limits that don't exist for the natural sciences. Consequently, it's usefulness as the foundation for engineering is limited.
Still, I think that they are pretty useful when it comes to managing firms. They have ways of measuring supply and demand. They have the ability to measure the variation in energy use and how much this demand can be modulated by different programs (assuming that the programs have been tested).
However, to get to the point, what do you do when you don't have the ability to regulate/engineer a system? I think the best strategy is to just leave it alone--you don't go and centralize control over the whole thing -- in the hands of someone who has no idea of how to manage the system.
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." --Frederick Douglas
The problem is the interpretation
Well anyone can generate that data, but when they do they are certainly engaging in economics.
But besides that the point is not that the data is invalid, rather it is that our understanding of what exactly the data means is far from rigorous.
Similarly early astrologer made a huge number of good observations of the stars. They used those observations to make bogus predictions based on their pseudo-mystical nonsense. Good data, bad theory.
If you are talking about a naturally stable system, i.e. one that has built in negative feedback loops, as is the case with most ecological and biological system, then I absolutely agree. Hands of until you know what you are doing because the system will run by itself although maybe in a less than ideal way.
I'm not convinced that this case meets that criteria, though. Seems like this in inherently unstable situation, because of the positive feedback loops inherent in capitalism. If the system is going to break all the time on its own, why not put someone in charge. Could they do a worse job? Okay it's possible to do worse, but is it likely?
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
The concept is sound; the devil is in the details
There is nothing fundamentally wrong about the idea that, if the power grid is at its limit, everyone's thermostat automatically goes up a few degrees while more backup generation capacity can come online, or until peak hours are over.
In fact, this *already* happens in California -- it's just not automatic, and not for residential customers. When the grid is maxed out, large businesses already get a call from the power company asking them to shut nonessential stuff off. This happened at my employer all the time when I used to live in CA.
What it does *not* do is absolve us from the need to actually build power plants, or to charge people rates that reflect supply and demand rather than wishful thinking about how "we can't charge poor people too much!" And yes, electricity rates *should* vary by time of day.
And of course such a system is subject to abuse. But the *possibility* of abuse is not by itself reason enough to reject the entire concept. Want a reliable electricity grid? Then you need to accept the reality that supply is not infinite, and that if demand suddenly spikes and starts to exceed supply, demand had better back off *fast* or else the system fails.
This isn't just an economic issue, it's an electrical engineering problem. (Some day it could be transformed into an economics problem by having instantaneously varying pricing and thermostats that would adjust themselves automatically based on the current price, but that's not technologically feasible yet.)
That was all, like, reasonable and... uh... stuff
Are you sure you have the right color bar? :P
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
I tend to agree
It sounds really alarming the way Steve puts it, but if you really think about it, the electric company can already shut off your electricity during emergencies. Yes, it would be annoying to have your thermostat inform you that you were going to be experiencing a sudden chill, but that's minor compared to when they just shut your power off with no warning, and that already happens, and quite often here in my part of town.
skymutt: wise and powerful... enlightened...
More taxes for infrastructure maybe :-)
Sounds like the grid could use some improvement......
It is the economy, stupid.
Yeah, no kidding
I've never lived anywhere where the electricity was close to being as unreliable as it is here, and I lived in San Diego during the era of rolling blackouts. It's like living in Baghdad here, and that's only a bit of an exaggeration. I've actually heard an explosion when the power has gone off at least a half-dozen times-- a transformer somewhere within earshot, I suppose. Probably the same one, over and over and over. There really is something seriously wrong :-(
skymutt: wise and powerful... enlightened...
Just say it is for National Security
And make it happen in secret so you don't know if the government is messing with your thermostat and you'll get more conservative support.
Give the person in charge a cool title like "The Decider" or "The Regulator" and you are golden.
They can put anything they want in my house...
...as long as they pay for it. I had one of those unfortunate occurences a few years ago where they went around town checking everybody's gas line and of course they found a leak in mine (which I still think was a scam to generate business for maintenance crews). $800 bucks down the drain to have them install a sleeve on my outside line. BSBSBSBSBSBSBS!
I realize that you pay for it out of your taxes anyway, but it just seems worse when you have to write a check :-(
skymutt: wise and powerful... enlightened...
Not that bad
There should always be examples of such emergencies written into the law so that the risk of abuse is reduced. Abuse is always a problem with overly broad legislation.
I never broke the law; I am the law! --
George W. BushJudge DreddI'm listening to...
To use your quote Steven
Freedom seems out, fatigue is in. I mean, why expect people to regulate themselves when the government can do it?
To continue down the path of this law.....It's just too much work to try to convince your neighbor that maybe he doesn't need 10000 Xmas lights.. much easier to just call the cops instead. Might cost the taxpayer a ton of money to arrest, prosecute, and otherwise regulate this guy, but hey, that way I don't have to have the fatigue of interpersonal, communal, interaction.
I get the gist of this law. But this is indeed an iceberg.
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
Eureka
That's pretty much the foundation of my theory of anarchism :)
You have controlled your fear, now release your anger, and your journey to the black bar will be complete.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
What's even easier
...is to charge him high electricity rates.
PG&E was charging me 23 cents/KWh in California. (I now pay 6.5 cents/KWh in Austin.)
I find a BB gun works too. -nt.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Swooshed again
Maybe I'm just late to the party, but the actual import of this just hit me. Thus the power of carefully crafted PR documents is demonstrated yet again. Let me explain.
The problem this action is attempting to solve is the lack of power at peak usage times. To smooth the peaks a bit, as it were, by reaching into your home and adjusting your usage when demand is high. A reasonable person can see how that might be needed. Blackouts and brownouts are a problem that the power companies need to address.
But should they not be addressing this first with those who use the most energy -- like their biggest business customers?
Why should WalMart be able to maintain its overly lit and overly cooled store while you and I bake in our homes?
The energy companies have a problem and would really rather not deal with their biggest and most profitable users -- big business. Instead, they want to hit the least likely and least able to fight back segment of their customer base -- you and me.
And they word it in such a way that we first think of "our castle" or "sharing the load amongst people" instead of rationally -- and saying that maybe business and other huge users need to do more first, or be the first who are remotely regulated
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
Excellent points
I find this forced control intolerable. Very much so.
Education, and voluntary action, plus incentives for keeping your energy bill low would work much better.
It is the economy, stupid.
Update on this matter
via The Liberty Papers
.
Well that's better at least n/t
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I see it as a retreat
they'll be back and with the mandates thermostats in place.
I'm cynical.
Of that I have no doubt! n/t
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777