[jyl]

Looks like the idea is that in emergencies, when the system is at risk of brownout or blackout, they can reach out and lower thermostats (or raise them, in summer), to avoid brownouts and blackouts. During non-emergency times, you can set your thermostat as you wish.

Makes sense to me. Yes, the feature could be abused, but so can anything.

It isn't the ideal solution. The ideal, I think, would be for electricity price to fluctuate according to demand/supply, and you and your appliances would have to be smart enough to lower consumption when price is high and move the consumption to when price is low. But I don't think the necessary products/technology exists yet. This is a practical solution in the meantime, to reduce power emergencies and blackouts.

I know the guy pictured in the NYT article, the commissioner of the CEC. He used to be my neighbor, we'd get together and talk about the market etc. Art is far from a crazy greenie. He is a top physicist, was at Lawrence Berkeley Labs for a long time, won the Fermi award for particle physics.