{"id":47039,"date":"2022-09-02T11:51:22","date_gmt":"2022-09-02T15:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=47039"},"modified":"2022-09-02T11:51:22","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T15:51:22","slug":"is-this-the-future-for-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=47039","title":{"rendered":"Is This The Future For Americans?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday, <a href=\"https:\/\/theconservativetreehouse.com\/blog\/2022\/09\/01\/22000-colorado-households-lose-control-of-their-home-thermostats-during-heat-wave-as-power-company-locks-out-air-conditioning-use\/?fbclid=IwAR0S4vGtkvlv3TWmcWUE_Hy5qU-Qsns-2Sc5_jU5-k7YQ2__TX28mtwPhTc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Conservative Treehouse<\/a> posted an article about a recent event in Colorado that should concern all of us.<\/p>\n<p>The article reports:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedenverchannel.com\/news\/contact-denver7\/thousands-of-xcel-customers-locked-out-of-thermostats-during-energy-emergency\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Denver ABC7<\/a>) \u2013 [\u2026] when thousands of Xcel customers in Colorado tried adjusting their thermostats Tuesday, they learned they had no control over the temperatures in their own homes.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>[\u2026] \u201cI mean, it was 90 out, and it was right during the peak period,\u201d Talarico (Tony Talarico, a resident of Arvada) said. \u201cIt was hot.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s when he saw a message on the thermostat stating the temperature was locked due to an \u201cenergy emergency.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>[\u2026] Xcel confirmed to Contact Denver7 that 22,000 customers who had signed up for the\u00a0<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/co.my.xcelenergy.com\/s\/residential\/heating-cooling\/ac-rewards\">Colorado AC Rewards program<\/a> were locked out of their smart thermostats for hours on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Denver ABC7 also notes:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>&#8220;I mean, it was 90 out, and it was right during the peak period,&#8221; Talarico said. &#8220;It was hot.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>That&#8217;s when he saw a message on the thermostat stating the temperature was locked due to an &#8220;energy emergency.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>&#8220;Normally, when we see a message like that, we&#8217;re able to override it,&#8221; Talarico said. &#8220;In this case, we weren&#8217;t. So, our thermostat was locked in at 78 or 79.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>On social media, dozens of Xcel customers complained of similar experiences \u2014 some reporting home temperatures as high as 88 degrees.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>Xcel confirmed to Contact Denver7 that 22,000 customers who had signed up for the <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/co.my.xcelenergy.com\/s\/residential\/heating-cooling\/ac-rewards\">Colorado AC Rewards program<\/a> were locked out of their smart thermostats for hours on Tuesday.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>&#8220;It&#8217;s a voluntary program. Let&#8217;s remember that this is something that customers choose to be a part of based on the incentives,&#8221; said Emmett Romine, vice president of customer solutions and innovation at Xcel.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>Customers receive a $100 credit for enrolling in the program and $25 annually, but Romine said customers also agree to give up some control to save energy and money and make the system more reliable.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>&#8220;So, it helps everybody for people to participate in these programs. It is a bit uncomfortable for a short period of time, but it&#8217;s very, very helpful,&#8221; said Romine.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>This is the first time in the program&#8217;s six year span that customers could not override their smart thermostats, Romine said. He said the &#8220;energy emergency&#8221; was due to an unexpected outage in Pueblo combined with hot weather and heavy air conditioner usage.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As connectivity increases, those who control the connectivity have the power.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about a recent event in Colorado that should concern all of us. The article reports: (Denver ABC7) \u2013 [\u2026] when thousands of Xcel customers in Colorado tried adjusting their thermostats Tuesday, they &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=47039\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2093,4993,15698,11430,15699],"class_list":["post-47039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-colorado","tag-denver","tag-denver-abc7","tag-the-conservative-treehouse","tag-thermostats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47039"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47043,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47039\/revisions\/47043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}