In Texas, a Push to Save Power at Peak Times
Last summer, when temperatures soared above 100 day after day, Robert Rhea’s thermostat took on a life of its own.
“[My] thermostat would be shut down for 15 minutes, just boom!” said Rhea, the owner of a Dallas-area business called Integrity Coatings. “You lose control of it completely."
Rhea is among the small but growing number of Texans who are signed up to assist the electric grid when it is strained, which occasionally happens when afternoon heat sends air conditioners into overdrive. The idea is to find ways to cut power use during those times of strain, which can ...
Comments (7)
Rudy Gonzales
The Conservative "Deer in the head lights" governor and the gross failure of ERCOT to allow the building of coal powered units, smacks of partisan politics on steroids. There has been a steady decline in the quality of representation for the people of Texas in Austin from the current "conservatives" in office.
con·serv·a·tive? ?[kuhn-sur-vuh-tiv]-
disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
Say it with me.
Existing conditions mean nothing will change under the conservative banner and things will continue to erode into oblivion under this mantra.
Throwing money into Austin will not fix the problems de-regulation was supposed to have fixed and allowing coal fired production plants to be built without regard to down-wind states or federal EPA compliance is just plain confrontational. Change must be made to the Legislature and the governor's office to effect real representation for the people in Texas.
Over and above this issue is today's federal appeals court upholding the rulings of the EPA that heat trapping gasses from industry and automobiles endanger public health, further that the Clean Air Act requires the federal government to impose limits once it has determined emissions are causing harm.
Fourteen states, led by Virginia and Texas, had sued to block the rules. Fifteen states, including New York, California and Massachusetts, went to court to support the agency. Massachusetts and California were among the states that won a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2007, Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, that led to the agency’s endangerment finding. The attorney general of Virginia said he would appeal Tuesday’s ruling.
The politics of carbon dioxide regulation have grown more partisan over the years. When Massachusetts first brought the case that led to the landmark Supreme Court decision, its governor was Mitt Romney. As the presumptive Republican nominee for president, he has since backed away from his earlier position that human-caused global warming is under way.
Steve Wilson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Comfortable Conservation: there's an app for that
http://www.ercot.com/news/press_releases/show/26221
Jim Golub
The problem is not about lame attacks on political ideology but one of technology. An air conditioner is not designed to nor should it run constantly. It should cycle on to bring the temperature to the thermostat indicated temperature and then cycle off until the temperature drops a couple degrees, then repeat the cycle. It sure should run so non-stop that a thermostat has to be turned off manually. But, AC companies determine AC needs based on an average temperature that does not realistically meat the demands of intense summer heat so THAT is why the ACs are running non stop. A slightly heavier unit, while drawing more power, will still use less cycling on & off.
Another problem to the equation is that many buildings are sorely under insulated. That issue is being addressed but, only time will attend to that as old buildings are replaced or upgraded and there are limits to how far you can upgrade.
Back to the political comment, being a conservative doesn't mean we don't want to solve problems. Only an idiotic moron would believe that drivel. We just don't believe an oppressive socialist government is the answer.
BiffTannen
It raised three or four whole degrees! Surely his pinot was ruined!
Cris Sleightholm
Oh yeah, it will be voluntary at first, then mandatory as government increasingly exerts its power over the people, running their lives and ruining their lives.
Anya Khan
If the kids want to watch TV durig peak hours...they have to pay me.
Anya Khan
Pinot? Did somone say pinot. Off to kitchen