[quickthrowman]

The electrical utility program they’re talking about doesn’t control your thermostat, it’s a line-voltage device that is wired in-line with your air conditioning compressor. It has a relay that enables and disables the compressor circuit. The enable/disable signal comes from the utility. The furnace fan will still run.

Xcel Energy calls their program “Saver’s Switch” if you want to read more about it

[mindslight]

That seems even easier to bypass, but makes more sense if they're just using that to moderate instantaneous draw (everyone's compressor kicking on at once), rather than trying to reduce total cooling demand.

But my original critique still applies. If you have two AC units, and only install the switch in series with one, do they figure it out based on your draw and cut your discount in half, or what? Or do they do the install themselves and check over your system. And if you later open up your own equipment and bypass it, they treat you similarly as if you were to just jump your electric meter?

I do wonder if this approach makes sense from the homeowner perspective too. Modulating your compressor means that you need a bigger compressor to handle the same cooling load, and short cycling isn't going to be good for it.

[Wyoming23]

You're overthinking this.

Yes, you could buy a second AC and do complex wiring and control trickery to hack the system... Or you could just not sign up for the voluntary system and pay an extra couple bucks a year.

Any effort to hack the system is going to be far more cost or hassle than just not signing up for the program, for people who are following financial incentives. If you want to hack the system for the fun of it, sure you could, but the utilities aren't really worried about that.

[mindslight]

I'm overstating it because I'm analyzing it adversarially. But I could very easily see these situations happening emergently. Central HVAC in the main house, then an addition/office/etc that gets a mini split or even its own ducted HVAC. So sure, main AC gets set back 5 degrees but then you're still hot, so just kick the office AC on high and leave the door open.

Also jumpering over a low voltage thermostat takes like 5 minutes tops, and could be easily done by the type of tech enthusiast early adopter that would be interested in programs like these. And it only takes someone getting too hot once to try it, and then just continue doing it routinely. Never mind people for which the few bucks a year is significant.