San Diego has been experiencing a major heat wave and our local utility, SDG&E, has asked people to conserve electricity so that the grid isn’t taxed too much. If people sign up for “Reduce Your Use” rewards, SDG&E will pay people if they use a certain amount less than normal at peak times. This annoys me to no end as I conserve everyday and can’t conserve any more. We use ceiling fans all the time, turn off lights in rooms we’re not using, run appliances at non-peak times, installed high efficiency appliances and lights, etc.
Our house has gotten so hot, that I had no choice but to turn on the air conditioning. When the house hit 88 degrees today, I set the temperature to 76, but the house only reached 83 before I turned it off. I work from home and stand under a fan all day; this keeps me reasonably comfortable so I don’t run the air too much. When I’ve left the house, I close the downstairs windows and leave fans on for the dog. It has been so hot this week, that I had to turn on the air conditioning for the dog.
So I definitely won’t be getting credit for conserving during these really hot days because I already conserve! Yes, my reward is I pay less for electricity, but providing people extra incentives to conserve when they should conserve all the time anyway rubs me the wrong way.
This drives me crazy too. I am an So Cal Edison customer and after upgrading appliances and lights all to LED I have realized I “grenned” myself out of any rebates. Not every time I get a text message that it is a save energy day it just rubs me the wrong way…