House Heating and Cooling

A year or two ago the wife signed our household up for a program (Smart Hours) through Alliant Energy, our electric and natural gas provider, that allows them to control our cooling and heating during peak demand periods. This is a story of that heat and cooling control.

First off, I am familiar with peak control of electricity, but seldom hear of peak control of heating (natural gas). Electric use is more peak demand problematic than is heating, due to air conditioning use, and the hottest part of the day being the time people return home from work, begin cooking, and doing laundry and other chores. Utilities employ costly natural gas powered turbines and fuel oil generators to meet peak electric demand. Many have a program with private businesses. I am familiar where MGE will provide back up generators to the business on the condition that they can be used by MGE for peak power generation to meet load demand. This program generated (pun intended) a great deal of concern among neighbors of a large data server complex that had several generators. Each addition of servers posed the most difficult of issues of expansion for the data center and the most difficult to manage, particularly sound management. People realized that if the power was out it would be a unique circumstance, but they did not like the idea of large, noisy generators, the size of a semi trailer, running on a summer afternoon. I felt for the homeowners who had no idea such a facility would be placed near their home, but was due to the large influence businesses have on city decision making under the guise of economic development. It is not like they produce a great number of high paying quality jobs, as there are few workers at data centers, which reduces traffic load in the area.

Really, a normal temp of 70 for cooling?

Last week, on Thursday, 15 Feb 2024 we received notification that due the coming cold weather they would control our heat from 6 am to 8am. on Friday, 16 Feb. Alliant indicated they would first heat the house up to a normal temp before setting the thermostat to a lower temp than our normal 67 degrees. I thought they must be mistaken as the outside temps were anticipated to only get down to about 24 degrees, and wondered if they meant Saturday morning when it is projected to be 10 degrees. This made me wonder what kink was occurring in natural gas supply. 

When that large data farm was going in I suggested that they do a cogeneration type of facility, to transfer their excess heat to help heat adjoining buildings. The University of Notre Dame has its own data facility which heat is used for greenhouses owned by the city of South Bend, IN. It is doable, and the technology is readily available (heat tunnels like the UW Campus has had for a century or more). However, the representative of the owner said it would be a tier 4 secure data center, which would not allow the heat transfer. As is typical of business decisions, it turned out not to be a tier 4, but a lower tier 3 data center which has less security measures, and under which they could have done heat transfer. I think they simply did not wish to do it, and came up with such an excuse. Bait and switch tactic. Such co-use of a heat producing source could have benefited adjoining buildings, and reduced both electric, natural gas, and water use. Data centers are cooled 365 days a year, all day long, every day of the week. The large cooling equipment uses a great deal of water, which is not appreciated by the utility, but was appreciated by the economic development coordinator, and one need not guess who won out. 

A homeowner receives notification of an upcoming event

MGE one time owned 80 acres off of Seminole Highway in Fitchburg that was to be used as a fly ash dump. That never materialized, but then they wanted to put some large combustion turbines in, and right across Seminole Highway is the high-end subdivision Seminole Forest. They were in an uproar and MGE eventually pulled the request. I often wondered how many of the customers at that time had the device that allowed the utility to turn off their air conditioning unit as a demand reduction method? We had one in McFarland. A rate payer interested in conservation and reducing peak load would certainly have had that device.

It came to pass that Friday morning arrived and we got out of bed about 6:15 am, Our heat is set down at night to 64, and is programed to be at 67 at 6:45 am. Friday morning the temp stayed at 64, which made us wonder if they ever heated it up more, as they did not recognize that we set our heat back a few degrees at night, which the utility companies recommend, but many furnace manufacturers do not. The heat stayed at that temp until about 7:30 or 7:45 when it kicked in and started to warm up to our standard day time temp of 67.

We have had our thermostat turned up in the summer, but they cooled down the house before hand. This makes me wonder if it saves much electricity (or natural gas) on the customer end?  It reduces peak load for the utility, but does a homeowner see a greater energy expense by the company cooling the house down or heating the house up, and get it back to normal set temperature, or is more energy used to accommodate the temperature fluctuation? Our house temp with the AC is about 76 degrees. The problem is excessive load can cause issues with furnaces and air conditioners. We had an issue many years ago with our furnace when we turned the heat in the house down to about 60. The technician indicated that it is best not to turn it down that far, as it placed too much load on the furnace, to heat up the house at the same time as it is combating heat loss in extreme cold. At times it would have to turn itself off before it would start up again. I suspect the same situation happens with air conditioners. The entity that benefits is the utility by reduction of load. In reducing load for the energy provider are we increasing our costs? 

One week last year we went camping and the forecast was for temps in 90's to near 100. We got to our campsite in northeast WI, and had settled in. I bought a small load of firewood nearby because temps were supposed to be hot in that area of the state too. The fires would be limited for evening cooking and perhaps night enjoyment. The next day I went and bought a big supply as the temps at our location struggled to get to 60 degrees, while 80 miles away it was in upper 80's. It was that way for our whole four night camping trip. We went through all the firewood I had purchased a few miles from the campground. Some days the fire was going most of the time we were awake. It all goes to show how variable the weather is.

Alliant's Qualifications for Smart Hours

I had never expected to get that email from Alliant that they would be controlling our heat for a couple hours, particularly since it never occurred when we had that week of very cold weather in January. The Smart Hours program may benefit the utility more than the customer even though it is sold by the utility and conservation organizations as a cost saving measure to the homeowner. Although saving a utility the expense of large generators helps the rate payer, but its peak production demand measures are borne by all ratepayers, whereas this program perhaps only enrollees of the Smart Hours program bear a burden. The cooling and heating turn down do not bother me, and it makes me think I am doing my part, but I do wonder if it costs us extra. 

Note: Images from Alliant Energy website.