PeakSaver Thermostat
The house we moved into is a bit of an oddball in some ways, and one of them is in the HVAC system. The original house is about 30 years old, and there was an addition built on about 10 years ago.
The utility room in the original house is in a location that makes it impossible to run ducts from there to the addition, so when they built the addition, they added a second furnace and air conditioner.
The thermostat in the main house is a nice programmable unit, but in the addition, it was one of those old style round manual types.
I’d been looking at a programmable thermostat for the addition, since it’s mostly my office over there and the potential benefits from having the temperature adjust on a regular schedule would be significant.
There are a few features I like to have on a thermostat. Automatic switching from heating to cooling, for example, and adaptive recovery. Adaptive recovery is where the thermostat learns how long it takes the temperature in the house to adjust, so that when you say you want the temperature to be 72 degrees at 7am, it learns how many minutes before 7am it needs to turn the furnace on to get the temperature to 72 degrees by 7am.
Newer thermostats have touchscreen control; not something I was really looking for, but nice to have.
Ontario has this program going on called PeakSaver, where, in exchange for granting them the ability to raise the temperature by 2 degrees on hot days when the power grid is stressed, they will give you a free thermostat and install it for you. And they’ll throw in a $25 credit.
A thermostat that has these features, like this Honeywell model, is around $149. PeakSaver provides a Honeywell UtilityPRO thermostat, including installation, free.
I signed up today and went into Brant County Power’s office to pick up the thermostat. It’ll be installed tomorrow morning.
Curious about how the thermostat communicates with the utility I did a bit of digging. On the case are some patent numbers, and one leads to US Patent Application # 11770615. Of course, being a patent application, the wording is as non-specific as possible. For example:
In some instances, thermostat may receive signals from utility via a communication network. Communication network may include wireless communication between utility and thermostat, using radio frequencies and the like. In some cases, communication network may represent a hard-wired communication network between utility and thermostat, such as copper wiring, coaxial cable, CAT 5 cable, fiber optics, and the like.
Looking at the back inside of the unit, a small wire antenna is visible. This rules out communications over the power line.
A bit more digging and I found this press release from Honeywell noting that they had added ZigBee support to the UtilityPRO thermostats (via a module – the thermostat looks like the communications system may be modular). Another page notes that “this allows utilities to further leverage their investment in the smart grid versus having to establish third-party paging networks, which are traditionally used for demand response programs”.
ZigBee might make sense if I had a smart meter, but I don’t. Brant County Power isn’t rolling out smart meters until May 2010.
So here’s my take: The UtilityPRO thermostat has a modular communications system, and the communications system they’re using in Ontario is based on the pager network. The device can’t transmit; it can only receive signals, so THE MAN isn’t watching what you set your termperature to.
A lot of people I’ve talked to are very leery of, or dead against, having this thermostat installed, because they don’t want the government controlling their air conditioning. This just doesn’t bother me. Yes, it’s true the power company could ask the thermostat to raise the temperature in my house by 2 degrees on very hot days. They’re not going to do this until they’re on the verge of rolling blackouts, because it costs them money to reduce power consumption. And even if they do it, two degrees is not that big a deal.
In exchange for what you’re giving up, you get not just the cool thermostat, but a service that I’m sure in any other circumstance you’d be paying for: Internet access to programming the thermostat.
You can bring up a web browser, log in to the site the power company gives you, and set up your thermostat. The settings get sent to the thermostat through the pager network. And you can do this from anywhere. Out of town and forgot to set the thermostat to save energy? You can do it from wherever you are.
This thermostat also allows them to send short messages (like SMS) to your thermostat with information like how much power you’ve used this month, upcoming weather events, or more likely in the future, ads.
The PeakSaver program launched with some much less interesting hardware: A box that attaches directly to the power line to the air conditioner, originally, then a basic ExpressStat thermometer, and now this one. Seems to me the utilities are trying to overcome public resistance to the program by sweetening the deal. And it worked on me.
November 19th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
So I’m one of those people who’s dead-set against letting the government control the temperature in my house… I’m opposed out of principle. However, I have friends who got the thermostat and regret it. My friends hosted a birthday party at their place during the summer on a hot day. They usually have the thermostat set to 23C. Well, since it was hot, the temperature was taken over and raised the extra couple of degrees. But because there were lots of people in the house, it was actually much warmer, and you can’t lower the temperature once it’s been adjusted. So it was a balmy 27C in the house. Their house is small and it started to rain, so everyone had to come inside. It kind of sucked to be a hostess in an incredibly uncomfortable house and have to keep saying “I’m sorry, but I can’t change the temperature.” Usually my friend adjusts the temperature to be several degrees colder than she needs earlier in the day to compensate for any change made by the hydro company – thus completely defeating the purpose of the thermostat…
November 19th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Stephanie – well your friend must have been having a party on a non-holiday weekday afternoon? That’s the only time they’ll adjust the temperature. There’s also the ability to go to a website and “opt out” for a day. She could have done that as well.
November 19th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I think it was on a weekday afternoon – maybe a Friday. I think it was on her daughter’s actual birthday. She probably didn’t know about the website to opt-out for a day. I personally won’t invite Big Brother into my house – especially not for a measly $149.
November 23rd, 2009 at 5:33 pm
So how, exactly, are you able to communicate to with this thermostat via a website without it being able to send data? Clearly THE MAN would be able to see what temperatures are being set to if they wanted to (and if they were involved with the program, which is the case in many locals as many governments have monopolized the power production).
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Sam, the website lets you configure how you want the thermostat set, and then that data is transmitted to the thermostat. You can’t use the website to query the temperature or current settings, only configure and send new settings. The thermostat can’t transmit.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:19 am
How could anything be configured remotely like that without acks from the thermostat itself? It has to have transmit capabilities. Even to ping a device, that device must transmit.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Steve,
The UtilityPro thermostat seems to be set up to communicate via a smart meter network. There is a lot that can be deduced from -
http://www.state.nj.us/bpu/pdf/energy/Honeywelldemandresponse.pdf
which is a marketing proposal for a similar system.
This leads to -
http://www.cooperpowereas.com/Products/AMI/AMR-AMI.cfm
which is a smart metering system.
However this appears unlikely, you do not have a smart meter, and are unlikely to have power line connections available for one. I have one installed (Ottawa), it may or may not connect to anything.
Your idea of using the paging system appears the most likely.
The installer who came did not install the thermostat, since he was not sure about my heat pump. However he let me copy the leads names off the unit. The pins all were standard except one labeled “K”. This is not a pin on any regular Honeywell thermostat. It could be some sort of a communication pin. Is it connected on the thermostat of any of your readers?
November 24th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
John – if you look inside the UtilityPRO the communications section (which also has the USB port on it) seems to be modular – you could remove the communications module and swap in a different one.
The NJ page you gave says that the UtilityPRO can integrate with AMI and I think that would be through ZigBee. Check out this link:
http://www.metering.com/node/13500
“Honeywell today introduced a ZigBee®-enabled version of UtilityPRO™, a touchscreen programmable thermostat designed for utility-sponsored demand response programs.” – so a utility could be set up to do two-way communication depending on the module installed. But given that I don’t have a smart meter, it can’t be using that here. In Ottawa, I don’t know.
November 24th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Sam – there are millions of pagers out there that just receive messages and display them, and can’t transmit. This is a similar scenario.
November 25th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
If the sender can’t authenticate who it’s talking to and has to broadcast, then this certainly loosens the security. Hopefully the messages are encrypted. Also, I would imagine that there are much higher occurrences of configurations not being set because of communication failures which aren’t detectable. Neither side knows if it worked – I’d rather have two way communication coupled with a non-government (or government ordained monopoly) power company.
November 25th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
I’ve seen people complaining that the settings they configured on the website didn’t show up on their thermostat. I guess it happens.
I wonder how often it happens that the broadcast to adjust the temperature isn’t received.
January 9th, 2010 at 11:26 am
How do you turn off the adaptive intelligence recovery feature on this unit? I have an old house that never reaches set temp. so the adaptive recovery feature always has the furnace on. Instead, I just want it on at set program times. I know it should be under the function id 530 but that id doesn’t show up on this thermostat.
February 10th, 2010 at 12:35 am
I have the peaksaver thermostat (in San Antonio) and have not had any problems with sending changes to it via the internet. I’ve tested it a few times and almost as soon as I hit the send button, the thermostat received the signal. It is receive only (like a one-way pager) so nobody can see what you have your thermostat set at. The AC blower remains running if they cycle the compressor, but about the time you might notice the temperature rising a bit, the 10 minutes are up and it kicks on again.
There is a slight click noise when the thermostat turns on, but other than that I can’t think of anything I don’t like about it.
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:46 pm
Sam – there are millions of pagers out there that just receive messages and display them, and can’t transmit. This is a similar scenario.thermostat
March 13th, 2010 at 11:30 am
I’ve been using the UtilityPRO for about a month. Some of you folk are WAY too paranoid. If you think the ‘stat is intrusive (it’s not), then remove / replace it. If you can wire up speakers to a stereo, you can change your thermostat. I personally like the idea that my energy company is trying to modulate peaks & valleys of usage. And you can opt out if you like (down here, anyway).
WRT the house party temp problem, I’d say that the ‘stat is incorrectly placed, i.e., it’s not reacting to temp changes fast enough. I’d bet it’s plastered to an outside wall, or a place that reacts slowly to ambient temp changes. My ‘stat seems to measure wall temp vs. room temp. I plan to put a thin insulating material behind it, or move it so it will pick up room temp vs. wall temp for faster reaction time. Now if we could just stop burning coal….
March 17th, 2010 at 8:12 am
I have had this stat for about 6 months .We are on our 3rd one. Thay all keep loosing about a minute a day.After watching it for a while it goes blank for about 30 seconds. I am going to give up and get rid of it.
March 26th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
If the stat goes dark, it’s not usually a problem with the thermostat. This is usually a sign that power to the thermostat has been interrupted. “The most common culprit is a clogged furnace filter or an under-sized furnace plenum. What happens is this:
1) The thermostat calls for heat.
2) The furnace turns on.
3) The furnace cannot move the hot air out of the unit due to the clogged filter, or under-sized plenum.
4) The unit over heats.
5) The furnace’s safety measures (usually an over temperature switch) kills all power to the unit (including the thermostat) to avoid a catastrophic failure.
6) This loss of power is seen as the thermostat shutting off (the mechanical thermostat never showed this, because there were no lights or indicators that used power).
7) The unit cools off and starts the whole process over again.
Often when the battery back up is getting weak (the above behavior greatly reduces battery life), they will not have the power to keep the internal clock ticking during a power outage. The thermostat then has to use the last known time and pick up from there again when power is restored.
I’ve even seen someone wire their house door bell from the same transformer. Their thermostat would reset and reboot every time someone rang their door bell!
October 16th, 2010 at 7:15 am
…Peaksaver thermostat is programmed to start but the gas furnace does not click on. the thermostat show it as “heat on” but the furnace is not on…..
the Peaksaver technicians have been here and told me I should call my furnace repair people which defeats the “free” thermostat deal.
I am convinced that it has to do with the thermostat because the furnace was just recently cleaned and works find…..when the start button on the furnace is pushed it starts and works fine, then the start and stop set on the thermostat works for a while then again nothing. I read that is could be a clogged furnace filter but wouldn’t that have been cleaned when my furnace was cleaned……HELP
November 17th, 2010 at 7:09 pm
I have the same issue with my PeakSaver. The screen goes blank when the furnace starts and the loss of time. I have a new filter in my furnace so that rules out the filter part. What I have observed is that the PeakSaver looses its 24 volt supply when the fan in the furnace kicks in. If I program the fan to be ON instead of AUTO, obviously the fan will be running 24 hours a day, but the issue with the blanking of the screen and loss of time no longer exists. I never had any such issues with my old thermostat, a fairly decent digital one. I’m seriously thinking of hooking it back up.
November 24th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
We decided to go green and has all new plenums and a high efficiency Whirlpool propane – 2 speed furnace (96% efficient) installed last summer. We also has a 14 seer 3 ton ac unit installed to replace the less efficient unit. Once this was all installed with a basic thermostat…I learned of the peaksaver program and decided this would offer advantages for both hydro and our family. I especially liked that I could adjust heat in winter while we are in Forida to keep the in house temp above 32 degrees F. This fall we turned on the heat and found that the Peak Saver rep had neglected to hook up the second heat stage since this called for one additional wire. The heating installer had already run the additional wires and left them dangling near where the connections ofr the thermostat would be made. Rather than advise us there was an issue with the # of wires the rep said nopthing and hence when cold weather came the furnace would start on low stage but could not transition to high stage. This meant the furnace simply quit and leave the air inlet to the furnace chamber running continually. The Peaksaver unit would read “heat on” but resulted in just a chilly weekend. On the Monday the heating rep came out and located the wiring issue made the connections that should have been done by Peaksaver and the system seemed to kick on lowheat, then pick up high and lide appeared good. Since then we have found that the furnace air intake fan continues to run all the time and the furnace does not seem to respond to requests from the thermostat for heat. The Whirlpool rep, contractor and the hydro peaksaver guru will hopefully resolve the issue tomorrow. If not we will regrettably have to remove the thermostat as we can’t take a chance of freezing and burst pipes while away. In my opinion Peaksaver needs to do a better job working with their installers. It would also be helpful if the thermostat was able to sense the actual temperature in the home and email a warning if the temperature were to fall below a customer chosen threshold like 45 degrees F. I can obtain such a thermostat on line for about $200.00 that runs off our DSL connection.
Will let you all know how we make out tomorrow.
November 25th, 2010 at 9:40 am
I had the same problem with my system but when I called the hotline on my thermostat the ppl on the line were able to help me out, give it a try.
December 15th, 2011 at 5:04 am
I have Honey Well peak saver thermostat model # 600547865 installed. I am getting erratic and illegible display on the screen. I believe that the batteries have run out. Can you please let me know how to replace batteries.