PALO ALTO, Calif. — Nest Labs Inc. has announced the addition of Time of Savings to its energy services offerings, which currently include Seasonal Savings and Rush Hour Rewards. Time of Savings makes it possible for the Nest Learning Thermostat to learn the price of energy for customers on Time of Use (TOU) rate plans so it can automatically adjust itself to help these customers use less electricity when energy prices are most expensive. Time of Savings is offered exclusively through Nest’s energy partners.
SolarCity customers can receive a Nest thermostat at no cost when they go solar, taking advantage of solar energy and features from the Nest thermostat that help save energy and money. In addition, SolarCity customers who have a TOU rate plan and a Nest thermostat will be enrolled in Time of Savings. More information can be found at http://nest.com/solarcity/. Nest is working with other energy companies including Southern California Edison to bring Time of Savings to more customers in the future.
“The California Public Utilities Commission has mandated that the state’s major utilities — Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison — move their residential customers to TOU rates by 2019,” said Ben Bixby, director of energy and enterprise business, Nest. “This means millions of California homes will be billed for energy differently in just a few years. Working with our energy partners, we designed Time of Savings to help customers manage these changing pricing schedules and make it easy for them to use less energy without sacrificing comfort. We’re excited that SolarCity is our first partner to offer Time of Savings and Nest is working with regulated energy providers across North America to offer this new service.”
With TOU rates, energy prices can change during the day and also vary throughout the year. Nest designed Time of Savings to provide energy companies with a technology solution that not only helps their customers save money on TOU rates, but takes care of managing their energy consumption for them automatically.
TOU plans can help customers save money by letting them know the specific times throughout the day when electricity is often most expensive. However, it can be difficult or even impossible for customers to manually adjust their HVAC use as electricity prices change during the day.
When customers sign up for Time of Savings, their TOU electricity rate information will be shared with Nest. The Nest thermostat can then use this rate information to learn and automatically adjust itself to help reduce electricity use during peak price periods. Nest never adjusts the temperature by more than a degree or two — just enough to keep customers comfortable while saving money. Customers are always in control and can change the temperature at any time. Time of Savings is also included in customers’ Energy History and Schedule so they know exactly when and where Nest helped them save money.
Customers will know Time of Savings is active when they see a green gear icon on the thermostat’s temperature screen and on the Nest app’s thermostat screen.
For more information, visit www.nest.com.
Publication date: 7/6/2016
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