energy action day

Usually, official emails have one of those "Click here if you're having trouble viewing this email" links, which takes you to their hosted webpage instead. My "Energy Action Day" alerts for Xcel Energy customers, however, does not have such a link, so I can't share the announcement properly here.

It recommends that I "increase your thermostat by 2 - 4 degrees for 3 - 4 hours during: September 12 4pm – 8pm". They don't explain that they want to charge more for electricity during peak times. I don't know if they actually are yet, but I remember Minnesotans generally being shocked by their utility bills in recent winters when Texas power grid failures jacked up prices even here in Minnesota with no warning. Somehow, we had to pay for their grid failure.

It's noon, so I just turned off my window a/c unit in the bathroom upstairs. I'll see how high the temperature gets in my house during this unusually warm September day in Minneapolis. Here on ground floor, the central air/heater control says it's 25C/77F. I'll go get my air monitor from the basement and transfer it upstairs. We'll see how hot and how fast it gets in my bedroom. I'm sure it'll be less dramatic than before I had the windows replaced, but it would be nice to have actual numbers. I'll create a table and update it today.

Time	outdoor (C)	outdoor (F)	floor 1 (C)	floor 1 (F)	floor 2 (C)	floor2 (F)
noon	26.7	80	25	77	23.3	74
1pm	28.3	83	25.6	78	25	77
2pm	28.9	84	26.1	79	26.1	79
3pm	29.4	85	26.6	80	27.2	81
4pm	29.4	85	26.6	80	27.8	82
5pm	28.9	84	27.2	81	28.3	83
6pm	28.3	83	27.2	81	28.9	84
7pm	26.7	80	27.2	81	28.9	84

It didn't get to 31C/88F today as I saw it forecast earlier this week. That's nice. It's also obvious to me (even though I don't have hard data from earlier years) that the new insulation with the new windows helps keep upstairs from heating up as fast as it did in times past. That's very nice.