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Big Brother is going to have his hand on the controls of my air conditioning this summer and it doesn’t bother me in the least.
Our family has signed up to be one of 1,600 homes in Mississauga who will participate in the peaksaver program.
In return for a free new $250 programmable thermostat, which allows you to automatically pre-set the temperatures of the furnace and air conditioner for designated blocks of time, Enersource Hydro Mississauga is going to have the right to turn up my air conditioning this summer on those blazing hot days when the combined AC across the province has every power plant chugging full bore.
From its central office, Enersource will be able to cycle my AC on and off, putting the fan on to circulate the cool air when the AC is off.
The concept is simple: many small increases in temperature in the 60,000 houses that will be on peaksaver across the GTA, Hamilton and Oshawa by the end of the year adds up to huge power savings, about 60 megawatts (MW) worth.
By turning the AC up a degree or two in your house for an hour or so and turning on your circulating fan periodically over the summer, officials hope to save one kilowatt of power per house. As Ken MacDonald of Enersource explains it, so non-techies like me can understand, 10 light bulbs of 100 watts apiece makes a kilowatt of power. One thousand kilowatts makes a megawatt. One MW saved in every one of 60,000 houses makes 60 MW.
The cost of installing a peaksaver thermostat in the home and all of the attendant technology needed is about $500 to save that kilowatt of energy.
If we had to provide that same kilowatt by building new generation facilities, the cost would be about $1,000.
So, not only is conserving the right thing to do because it minimizes emissions, but it also costs half as much for the identical benefit.
One of the other volunteers for peaksaver happens to be the senior citizen who inhabits the mayor’s office.
Ontario Energy Minister Dwight Duncan dropped into Mayor Hazel McCallion’s house on her birthday Wednesday to give her a cake and give himself a photo opportunity. He was also there to promote the peaksaver program.
Both Duncan and McCallion minimize any concerns people might have about the state manipulating the thermostats of the nation.
McCallion says people are starting to get the connection between lifestyle and climate change and they will embrace peaksaver like they have embraced blue box recycling.
Besides, it is a voluntary program and any participant can override the central control if they wish. Where it has been tried elsewhere, most participants didn’t even notice the intervention, noted Duncan. This may well be because most of the time on weekdays, they will not be home to notice them. (The program doesn’t run on weekends when power demand is already much lower.)
The mayor seemed most excited, not about the summer benefits of peaksaver, but about the fact that in the winter, she can now program her thermostat to warm up her house before she gets up at 5:30 a.m. That means she doesn’t have to run downstairs over freezing floors to turn the thermostat up.
The star of the show at the McCallion house was actually her 11-year-old German Shepherd named Hurricane. When the birthday cake was removed from its box for the special presentation, guess who was the first to clean up the stray icing that got left behind? (The mayor didn’t see it and I’ll never tell).
Hurricane also recognizes a photo op when he sees it.
But when he ventured into the living room the mayor said, “Hey you. You’re not supposed to be in here.” The mayor’s authority is such that the dog, three staff, two photographers and a reporter all immediately left the room.
You can get all the details about peaksaver and find out how to be one of the volunteers in Mississauga by visiting www.enersource.com and clicking on the peaksaver button on the front page.