COLORADO – Last week, around 22,000 Colorado residents were locked out of their smart thermostats due to, they were told, an “energy emergency.”
Temperatures were in the 90s during the lockout, and residents reported their homes remaining at about 88 degrees without the ability for them to adjust the temp. Xcel was reportedly the only company that put the temporary lock on people’s ability to change the temperature in their homes, or at least the only company that did it at such a level that caused people to make mass complaints.
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The screens for the smart thermostats indicated that there was an “energy emergency” at the time of the lockout, which was presumably based on the excessive heat and high AC usage. Customers were told on their thermostat screen that it would be temporarily locked due to a “loss of generation.”
Apparently, the only people affected were those who are a part of a rewards program with Xcel, where customers receive a discount on their bill for allowing the company to control thermostats when energy sources are “strained.” It’s evident, based on the complaints made, that customers were not expecting the control to rise to such extreme measures, as they were unable to obtain even a little relief from the heat in their own homes.
The discount program is called AC Rewards and apparently offers a $100 one-time credit for initial enrollment and then $25 per year to those who sign up.
Emmett Romine is the vice president of customer solutions and innovation at Xcel. Speaking on the matter, he said, “It helps everybody for people to participate in these programs, it is a bit uncomfortable for a short period of time, but it’s very, very helpful. It’s a voluntary program. Let’s remember that this is something that customers choose to be a part of based on the incentives.”
While customers were outraged, they did sign up for the voluntary program. The excessive heat instance begs the question: Is losing control of your own home’s temperature worth $25 per year? The amount of customers affected was reportedly about 1.5% (22, 190) of the company’s 1.5 million customers in the state of Colorado.
Romine also told local news outlet KMGH-TV that this incident was the first time in the six years since they implemented the program that the company actually used the lockout feature. Typically, he said, users “have the ability to opt-out of control events any time.” Sometimes though, like this past week, “system emergencies may cause a control event that cannot be overridden.”
He also said there are about 45,600 customers enrolled in this type of program across four states: Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, and, of course, Colorado.
Last June, CBS affiliate KHOU Channel 11 reported that customers in Houston, Texas started complaining about their homes reaching 80 degrees without the ability to adjust the temperature. Those customers, it turned out, had also signed up for a similar program called “Smart Savers Texas.”
This piece was written by Leah Anaya on September 7, 2022. It originally appeared on RedVoiceMedia.com and is used with permission.
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