So FYI from someone who's wife had to enjoy an 80 degree house while I was out of town because of this bullshit:
- I installed these myself (they are like $300 each too) a few years ago because I wanted the convenience (yeah lesson learned) of remote control from my phone while I was traveling.
- I didn't opt in to shit, confirmed by XCel and in my XCel account page where all these "services" were listed as off/opted out, the blamed Ecobee. I have never received any credit or refund.
- Ecobee blames XCel and says only they can turn it off
- I will be ripping these off the wall and replacing with analog dials
- The so called "emergency" was nearly 3 hours from where I live.
- Fuck XCel, fuck green energy, and fuck everyone who keeps enabling this kind of crap (including myself for installing these in the first place).
This is how they get you. Oh yea that would be so great, we are all out of town the dog is at the kennel, I can turn down the house and save some money, then in the car back from the airport I can cool it off before I get there, great idea and (I SAVE MONEY).
That is the hook they use. It is the same hook they use for electric cars as well.
I have a guy at work who is a pretty strong lefty, he is seeing the light now, but still very "green" and all that stuff. We tease each other quite often. I hung a Trump sticker in with his patch collection, he donated to biden under my name (ass hole you know how much crap I get now)....but fun stuff like that, just playing.
He did solar on his house, he said he is getting an electric car as soon as this current availability issue gets fixed, told him he has a few more years to go till the next pres election, oh come on, yea your right the D's will never allow a free and fair election again.....see fun stuff.
But he put solar on his house and "sized it" to charge his new car as well as take care of his house. Sounds like a good plan, yea, wife works 10 miles from work and I have a patrol car, cool. You should have a zero electric bill now.....what no? You should if you "sized" your solar array for charging an electric car that does not exist yet then you should be making more electricity then you could use in your house, does evergy buy it back?
The look is priceless.
That all said, back when I raced cars you could always find my trailer and motorhome, it had a HUGE pole on it with a wind trubine on it. That would power the motorhome with everything but the AC. On my shop I have solar and that same turbine and it runs the LED lights, and a heater for my water in the shop.
There are places where it will help, but it is not the magic bullet everyone makes it out to be.