In late summer 2019, an elderly woman I knew from church asked me to stop by her house in our New Mexico neighborhood. It was late August, the kind of day when the desert sun turns homes into ovens, and her air conditioner simply wouldn’t keep up. I’m no HVAC expert, but I promised to look at her thermostat.
There was no problem with the thermostat inside. The problem was on the air conditioner outside, but not a mechanical function or broken part. Her utility company installed a regulator on her A/C unit – part of a so-called “power-saving” program. The catch? During the hottest part of the day, when she needed cooling the most, the utility cut her system back. In exchange for surrendering control of her own comfort, she received a rebate of just $25 a year.
And now, instead of just controlling the A/C, some want central control of your whole thermostat.
A new bill in Ohio would allow utilities to reach into homes and directly control customer thermostats. Supporters call it “demand management.” But the reality is clear: these programs are designed to normalize energy poverty by conditioning families to accept less comfort and less freedom in exchange for pennies on the dollar.
Ohio wouldn’t be the first. In Colorado, tens of thousands of families discovered they couldn’t change their Wi-Fi enabled thermostats during a sweltering day. They were locked out – literally – because the utility had triggered a “demand response event.” One home in the program reportedly reached 88 degrees inside. Additionally, in Colorado Springs, customers are offered $50 to enroll, but the company reserves the right to raise your thermostat up to four degrees during peak demand. Sure, you can opt out – but the normalization is the point.
In Indiana, a utility pilot remotely adjusted smart thermostats to cut demand by nearly a kilowatt per home in summer. While residents technically could override, the default was no longer their choice — it was the utility’s.
Different programs, same philosophy: normalize energy scarcity by quietly taking over the devices in your home.
Policymakers and utilities always sell these schemes as “partnerships” or “innovation.” But let’s be clear: it’s not innovation to make a grandmother sit in a sweltering house because her air conditioner has been throttled. It’s not progress when families discover their thermostats are frozen on a triple-digit day. These programs shift the burden of bad energy policy onto ordinary families. Instead of building reliable power plants that keep up with demand, utilities are trained to manage shortfalls by managing you. Your thermostat, your A/C, your comfort – they become their safety valve.
This is how energy poverty is normalized. Not through rolling blackouts, but through quiet intrusions that teach us to accept less as the new normal.
Think of it this way: we would never accept Comcast taking control of our television or your internet provider cutting out news sources and social media sites. Yet, when it comes to air conditioning – the very system that keeps us safe in dangerous heat – we are told it’s normal for strangers to decide how cool our homes are allowed to be.
That double standard is alarming. The things that make life bearable in the hottest summers and coldest winters are the very things we should be protecting from outside control. The price tag for this surrender isn’t just $25 a year. It’s our autonomy. It’s the principle that our homes are our own. Every locked thermostat, every cycling A/C switch, every “demand response event” is another step toward redefining reliability downward. Comfort becomes selfish. Scarcity becomes “noble.”
That’s not noble. It’s rationing with a smartphone app. And if a utility company – or a government bureaucrat – can dictate the temperature of your living room, then your home is no longer your castle. It’s just another outpost in the grid they control.
