HYANNIS – The Cape Light Compact has announced a new partnership aimed at helping Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard residents cut back on their air conditioning usage this summer.
The compact is working in tandem with software company Internet of Things to provide participants with technology allowing them to remotely reduce their air conditioning at home directly from their smart phone or tablet.
If the program works as intended, it will help residential utility customers cut back on energy expenses while also reducing strain on an electric grid under increasing pressure during the hottest days of the year.
Austin Brandt, a power supply planner with The Cape Light Compact, said the program works to help all Cape and Vineyard rate payers.
“Those hot and humid summer days when everyone is running the air conditioning to stay cool in their homes is what drives peak demand on the system and those prices are paid for by everyone.”
The effort, dubbed The Smart A/C Savings Program, enables users to monitor and control a “smart thermostat” in their home from an app on the phone or tablet, and according to the compact a change of just a few degrees can make a substantial difference.
The program reserves the right to adjust the temperature of your home, rewarding you for it if they do.
Between the months of June and September, between the hours of 10 am and 9 pm when temperatures and thus the electric supply demand are at their peak, the compact may call for what they refer to as a “Demand Response Event.”
During such an event the utility will increase your home’s temperature between 2 and 4 degrees in order to ease the burden on the system.
Brandt says that this feature serves everyone involved, “what this program allows customers to do is essentially earn rewards for participating by allowing us to make small adjustments to their enrolled Wi-Fi thermostats during really hot and humid days of the summer.”
Participants will be notified of the event through an e-mail or in-app message and will also be able to override the system, preventing the technology from reducing the A/c beneath a predetermined temperature.
In return for their participation, customers can expect to see a slip in their energy costs and have the chance to receive a 25 dollar Visa gift card. Provided that they participate in at least 75 percent of the Demand Response Events offered.
The Smart A/C Savings Power Program is currently open for enrollment, applications as well as more details are available on the agency’s website capelightcompact.org/smart-ac.
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