How Does Beat the Peak Work?
The program is simple! During times when the cost to purchase and produce power for members is high, we issue Beat the Peak alerts. During these alert periods, we ask members to conserve energy. We recommend you turn off unnecessary lights, delay the use of major appliances like dishwashers and dryers, and turn up your thermostat a few degrees in the summer. Over the years, the program has saved members thousands of dollars. Because VEC is a not-for-profit utility, those savings are passed on to you in the form of affordable rates. This program is becoming even more important as energy costs rise.
VEC Beat The Peak Program
- Traditional Beat The Peak (Self-adjusted at Peak Times)
- Traditional Plus Smart Thermostat (Self-adjusted at Peak Times)
Earn up to $255 in Your First Year!
Please Note: From the time of signup, it could take 14 business days for approval by VEC. Once approved, you will receive an email directly letting you know you are now enrolled in the VEC BEAT the PEAK program.
During a Load Shed energy event, we notify our smart thermostat provider to temporarily adjust the temperature setting on your thermostat up to two degrees higher to limit A/C usage in your home You always have the ability to re-adjust the temperature during called events Overriding the automated upward adjustment of your thermostat could affect your Beat-The-Peak benefits.
A smart thermostat connects your heating and cooling systems to your smartphone, smart speaker, or other device. Depending on the thermostat, you can schedule your temperature settings, change the temperature remotely, and set reminders for scheduled maintenance. Some smart thermostats also use machine learning to understand your heating and cooling preferences and then adjust your settings based on those learnings.
Load shedding is a term used to describe a situation where there isn't enough electricity supply to meet consumer demand. In such cases, ERCOT may instruct electric utilities to implement controlled customer outages to reduce the customer demand for electricity on the ERCOT grid. This is done to help protect the electric grid and is known as involuntary load shedding. By limiting A/C usage, in participating homes during this time, it helps to reduce demand on the energy grid. The Beat the Peak program is being offered by VEC to offer an incentive to assist VEC reduce the amount of power being consumed when market prices are at their highest in an effort to reduce overall power cost for the VEC membership.
Electricity purchased by VEC to power our members’ homes is more expensive during peak times across the 6-county region we belong to. While members don’t see a fluctuation in energy costs on their bills based on time, we do. If more energy is needed during these peak times, the co-op's energy costs will increase and can lead to rate increases the following year. This program is one of the ways we try to prevent rate increases.
Because VEC is part of a transmission region serving the majority of Texas, we will have peak events even when it doesn’t seem like a day when there’s high demand on the energy grid in our service area. For example, if there’s a heat wave affecting Houston, that will ultimately affect us too because it increases demand in our region.
In the event you terminate your enrollment in the peak thermostat program before the end of the initial enrollment year, you will be ineligible to receive an enrollment credit for any future participation in the peak thermostat program. Upon re-enrollment in the program for a subsequent peak thermostat year, you will be eligible to again receive the annual participation incentive.
According to Energy.Gov, using a smart learning thermostat like the Honeywell T9 or similar members can save up to 10% on their cooling energy bill each year and between 10-12% on heating. These savings come from the ability of the thermostat to remotely turn on an eco-setting while you are away and not over-cool or over-heat an empty house! If you forget to adjust the thermostat to away settings, don't worry! The Wi-Fi connection of these thermostats also allows you to change the temperature from anywhere, even on a beach vacation hundreds of miles away.
