Freezing as its own reward

A number of Delmarva Power customers who enrolled in the Energy Wise Rewards program were rewarded yesterday morning, on the coldest day thus far this winter with wind chill values well below zero, with no heat. That’s because their thermostats were remotely told to ignore the cold temperatures inside the home to save electricity.

For their part, Delmarva Power threw electric grid operator PJM Interconnection under the bus, saying PJM originally asked Delmarva Power to comply. However, a couple hours later Delmarva restored the thermostat control, probably after complaints poured in. And while they had been repeatedly warning customers about the need to conserve electricity due to record winter demand, people were caught unaware that something they could live with during the summer could also be used in the winter.

I’ve written before about this Energy Wise Rewards program, which gives customers a proverbial thirty pieces of silver in return for the installation of these remotely programmable thermostats. Lo and behold, I even asked if this would someday extend to heating and here’s my answer.

Given the reaction and the fact this move made the evening news, I suspect this chilly morning was more routine for most. Obviously, though, there’s a big difference between having a home which is sweltering a little more than normal in the summer and having the risk of freezing pipes and perhaps fires from alternate heat sources being used in the winter. In the television segment, one of those affected put her roast in the oven to add a little heat to the house – seemingly defeating the purpose of having the thermostat turned down (unless it’s a gas oven, of course.)

So when the swallows return to Capistrano and your mailbox receives yet another solicitation for Energy Wise Rewards, do what I do – laugh and toss it in the trash (well, perhaps after I blog about their latest pathetic attempt at control.) I’m not saying conserving energy is a bad thing, but this is the state which mandates we save energy while refusing to exploit a reliable source of electricity for these same utilities because of essentially unfounded environmental concerns. We can frack our way out of this problem.

That’s a cold dose of reality right there.

One thought on “Freezing as its own reward”

  1. And let’s just ignore the fact the sharply lower temperatures can kill people, because unthinking, incidental murder in the name of The Plan is something only Communist states are familiar with.

Comments are closed.