22,000 US households have their air conditioners ‘locked’ in the middle of a hot day for ‘energy saving’ reasons

In some countries in Europe and North America, homes have to use a combination of indoor temperature management systems such as air conditioning, heating, ventilation systems. Due to the complexity of control, people often choose to use a common device that is a smart thermostat.

Basically, it’s a Wi-Fi connected device with automation, responsible for controlling the entire heating, ventilation and air conditioning system of the house at the same time. The user simply selects the desired heat level.

However, recently, these 22,000 smart thermostats in Colorado (USA) have been locked by the manufacturer to adjust the temperature on a hot day. This makes it impossible for their customers to set their home’s heat management system to a cooler setting, or simply turn on the air conditioner. And what they got was a notification regarding an “energy emergency”.

“Temperature is temporarily locked during an energy emergency,” reads the message displayed on the Xcel Energy smart thermostat. “Due to a rare energy emergency that could affect the local grid, your thermostat has been changed from 8am – 8pm because you signed up for the Energy Saver program. community size.”

The incident has angered many users of the service, with numerous complaints and criticisms on social media. Obviously, no one wants to experience the feeling of not being able to control the devices in their own home, or even if they are sweaty and still can’t turn on the air conditioner.

Unfortunately, in this regard, the company selling the device is not wrong. Because all of these customers have signed up to an energy-saving program from the company. Specifically, they received some, for example, a credit offer of $100 upon sign-up and $25 per year, to allow the company to sell devices that could remotely control smart thermostats.” in some cases necessary”.

“It was a voluntary program,” said Emmett Romine, vice president of customer solutions at Xcel Energy, later. “Remember that this is something customers have chosen to be part of the program, based on incentives.”

So why did this story go viral on the Internet and cause outrage on social networks? Simply because of the way it has turned into two much larger stories, not just centered around a household electronic device.

First, opponents argue that climate change – let alone any discussion of its effects or origins – has become an opportunity for governments and private companies to control much of the world. than people’s lives. For example, Xcel Energy is a privately owned utility company, and it has enough power to cause “a day of terror” in tens of thousands of households. Due to the spike in energy demand, they have left countless of their customers unable to adjust their own smart thermostats.

Those customers, of course, have agreed to participate in an energy-saving program. But it’s the way the smart thermostat is hijacked that’s causing the outrage. “We will see this more and more,” warned opponents. “Wait and see”.

In fact, different versions of the same story have popped up around the world in recent days. For example, California, the first state of the United States to ban the sale of gasoline-powered cars to gradually eliminate vehicles that emit C02, which is harmful to the environment. However, in the midst of a severe heat wave, the state government is asking Californians to limit … charging their electric cars. Meanwhile, the Spanish government has launched a campaign to limit the use of air conditioning in recent days. Greece is doing the same thing. All in the name of “conservation of energy”.

And that leads to the second, more influential story here. It is that whether we like it or not, we will increasingly see that the costs of climate change cannot be hidden. And they will specifically express their impact on infrastructure, in the form of numbers on the bill.

The city of Jackson, the capital of the state of Mississippi, is in the midst of a serious water crisis. Earlier in July, the city government issued many tips on boiling water before cooking or eating with the aim of killing germs. But heavy rainfall in recent days has led to a chemical imbalance at a long-standing water treatment plant in the city. And as a result, thousands of people have not been able to get clean water from the tap for nearly a week. Many people are forced to use bottled water for drinking, cooking and bathing.

“We kept paying our water bills and we couldn’t use the water,” Corean Wheeler, a resident of the city, told CNN. “We felt like we were living in a third world country, not the US.”

Refer to BGR, CNN