Last Spring I agreed to something called BGE “Peak Rewards.” This is something our gas and electric utility company promotes as a means of saving energy and garnering a few credits toward your monthly bill.
A technician fiddled around with our compressors behind the house after I signed up, and now they each have an odd little box riding shotgun, which sometimes shows a green light, but might—during the time we’re “cycled” to save energy—have a red light also.
This afternoon I didn’t have to call a repair company to tell ‘em our ac is broken, because I already tried that during a heat spell last summer, and they suggested I look at my Peak Rewards box. It had its red light on. Still, as the temp in our bedroom climbed into the 80s earlier today, it took me a few seconds to think of the reason. Woohoo. Peak rewards.
I did a little Googling later, to see how much evidence I could track down about how many people love it or hate it. Surprisingly, some think it’s dandy. They seem to be people who spend their days at the office, and come home to find that their cycling time has ended and the air’s kicked back to not-swelter. So it’s probably a combination of our Frank Lloyd Wright (the early years) cathedral ceilings upstairs hanging onto a batch of hotness, then releasing it to envelope the furniture when the ac let’s up a bit, PLUS the fact that we’re not usually out of the house when they cycle us that leads to my conclusion that this isn’t the deal for us.
For some reason I just decided to put up with it last summer. I think I don’t want to anymore. Tomorrow I must call BGE and request that they cease to reward us in such a manner as this, peak or no peak. Will they remove their boxes, or have we been irreversibly assimilated by the Borg?
2 comments:
I was just nosy so I checked out the website and it says " If you change your mind, you can opt out of the program at any time, and keep the new thermostat but chances are, you won't even notice when cycling is occurring" So I guess you can get out of the contract.
I know that's the theory. Whether I can actually get them to take my phone call or not is another thing. I called today, waited on hold, then got a human who said they were too backlogged (on what kind of work she did not say) and would take my number to call back. Which of course they did not do. Meanwhile, I sent an email to "contact us" requesting that we be removed and explaining why. I have a feeling people actually hire electricians to undo these things if they don't know how to do it themselves.
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