Yesterday, just after 1:00 PM I received the following email from SECO with the subject “An Event is Happening Soon”
“Hi idlewild,
On June 9, SECO Energy will manage one or more of your enrolled devices beginning at 2:00 pm to help lower energy use during peak demand. The event will last 4 hours.
You are always in control and can opt out of this event by manually adjusting your device during the event window.
If you have any questions email us at
smartconnect@virtual-peaker.com.
Thanks,
The team at SECO Energy“
Then, at 7:00 PM I received a follow up email thanking me for participating.
QUESTIONS:
1. I’m fairly certain but did anyone else receive this message?
2. I appreciate that they were throttling the load during peak temperature extremes (95+) but isn’t this Florida? How often does SECO do this? How
3. (a) I don’t know what “device” I had “enrolled” and/or how I could see that. Does anyone? (b) I’ll assume this is our HVAC but I didn’t see any thermostat temperature changes or other “management” of said “device” from SECO during this 4-hour block. Does anyone? And do finally (c) I also didn’t understand what they meant but overriding my participation by manually adjusting it. How do I opt out of otherwise “unenroll” my device(s) that are apparently opted in automatically?
4. Anything else I should be aware of as a new resident of Florida and SECO customer here?
I’m all for doing my part to help reduce the load (eg turning off lights,, increasing temperatures slightly, etc) but this email hit me as a surprise especially as we weren’t home and have dogs for whom we needed the house to stay cool. (Coming from a major Yankee city, typically we get such notices from our previous energy suppliers the day prior asking customers broadly to lower consumption during a specific period of time - not less than an hour prior to and certainly not in the same “we’re going to adjust your devices for you” vain).
Thanks in advance for any insight here and please forgive me if this is duplicative as it seems it should be relatively comment (I searched the forums prior to posting and couldn’t find any similar posts).