After seeing how much control it gives her over her energy use and electric bill, Susan Bingham is a believer in the benefits of the Graham County Electric Cooperative’s “Smart Thermostat” program.
“Absolutely, everyone I talk to, I recommend it,” Bingham said.
She’s not the only one; more than 100 Graham County Electric Cooperative Members have signed up for the co-op’s “Smart Thermostat” program since it was introduced, which provides bill credits in exchange for the ability to remotely adjust the Member’s thermostat to save energy and money during peak periods of extremely high demand for electricity.
It allows the co-op’s wholesale power supplier, Arizona Electric Power Cooperative, to remotely adjust the thermostat up a few degrees when it anticipates more demand and higher energy costs – and not only is the Member informed ahead of time, they can override the remote adjustment if they wish.
The benefits for the Member and the co-op are immediate.
“We get notifications via e-mail and in the app on our phones, if they’re going to tap into (the smart thermostat) and adjust the temperature, we know about it in advance, and we can even override it if we want to,” said Bingham.
“The first time it happened we didn’t even know; we found out after the fact when we saw it on my phone that we had an occurrence the night before, so then we started watching for them, and the next notification said they lowered it an hour before, then raised it (after demand went down) and we never even noticed, so it worked perfectly,” Bingham said.
GCEC General Manager Phil Cook said the potential for saving money and energy and obtaining bill credits makes the program “a win-win” for the co-op and its Members.
“You have the ability to override it, but if you participate in 65 percent of such events in a year you receive a $100 credit on your bill at the end of the year,” said Cook.
That’s $100 in bill credits for allowing the co-ops to save the Member both energy and money.
“I participate and I personally have had that happen and never knew the adjustment was made because it pre-cools your house; say the high demand event is going to happen at 6 p.m.; at 4 p.m. it adjusts the temperature slightly cooler when demand isn’t high, then at 6 p.m. it adjusts the temperature up only for that period of peak demand, say a couple of hours, and you probably won’t ever know it’s happened,” Cook said.
Another big benefit is how the thermostat can be monitored and adjusted remotely, using the program smartphone app, something Bingham uses often.
“I can be at work and want it to be 71 degrees when I get home, so I can set that and drive home and it’s just as cool as I want it to be; I can even be at home laying in bed and if it’s cold I can set it to 71 degrees using my phone app. I set my alarm and I set it to 71 degrees and 15 minutes later I’ll get out of bed and it’s the temperature I want,” Bingham said.
“It does have a pre-set program in it that you can run or you can change it every single day or it can be the same throughout the week, so that’s definitely a benefit; we work Monday through Thursday so I have a program for those days and then Friday, Saturdays and Sundays, all different also,” said Bingham.