I have an EV charger that already pays me an offset, apparently selling the carbon credits I am not using by not driving with gasoline? It doesn't pay a ton, but it's interesting.
I have heard of efforts to link thermostats etc. with this virtual power plant idea so that when there is an energy demand one's home appliances stop working so hard and use less energy. This of course could lead to hot/cold houses for people, so there must always be the option to manually override if the discomfort is a problem. So many of these efforts come from e.g. California... other places in the world have wider weather extremes to worry about!
All these decades with little, slow action on climate change, and all it actually took was the seven largest companies in the world wanting more power than is commonly available and, yes, we can find ways of making the average household more efficient right away!
It's a sad, but true, indictment about how scaled humanity works.
> adjusting tens of thousands of smart thermostats at once, effectively moving their electricity usage to a time when there is less demand
Somewhere amongst this was a great opportunity for reducing consumption of electricity from dirty sources, mass-optimizing millions of thermostats, car and electric bikes/etc charging, refrigerators, computer power settings etc to reduce emissions... but now it sounds like it should be illegal.
I have an EV charger that already pays me an offset, apparently selling the carbon credits I am not using by not driving with gasoline? It doesn't pay a ton, but it's interesting.
I have heard of efforts to link thermostats etc. with this virtual power plant idea so that when there is an energy demand one's home appliances stop working so hard and use less energy. This of course could lead to hot/cold houses for people, so there must always be the option to manually override if the discomfort is a problem. So many of these efforts come from e.g. California... other places in the world have wider weather extremes to worry about!
All these decades with little, slow action on climate change, and all it actually took was the seven largest companies in the world wanting more power than is commonly available and, yes, we can find ways of making the average household more efficient right away!
It's a sad, but true, indictment about how scaled humanity works.
> adjusting tens of thousands of smart thermostats at once, effectively moving their electricity usage to a time when there is less demand
Somewhere amongst this was a great opportunity for reducing consumption of electricity from dirty sources, mass-optimizing millions of thermostats, car and electric bikes/etc charging, refrigerators, computer power settings etc to reduce emissions... but now it sounds like it should be illegal.
Actually there are some utilities out there with programs like this!
(They'll still pay more for electricity, but less than if they hadn't taken the deal)
Edit: why is this comment suddenly grounds for an auto shadowban??????