I have been thinking about connecting my PG&E service account to OhmConnect to see if I can squeeze out even more savings from my electric usage…
I am a little concerned that my solar panels will screw up the rebate model, but reading different posts, it looks like solar customers are successfully using OhmConnect…
Upon connecting your account, you give permission for OhmConnect to have access to your PG&E account information, and for them to make any necessary changes to your account to make it compatible with the service… I am a little hesitant because I don’t want OhmConnect to inadvertently change something important on may account (as an example, I know they would not touch my net metering agreement…but let’s say that they change something similarly important to me like my net metering agreement)…
Also…I am pretty tight with my electric usage…I wonder if I even have any meaningful (and rebatable) electric usage reduction opportunities…
Anyone have any experience here?
Here’s a YouTube video describing the OhmConnect model… Not meant to be a spammy video… I just include it here for those of you who don’t know what I am talking about…
Wow… I know I just posted this earlier today… But with the sheer number of electric savings minded folks on this site, I am a little surprised no one has any experience to share with this service… Interesting… Perhaps it isn’t too popular… Also, I think this service is only available in parts of CA and TX…
I’m PG&E and have heard of OhmConnect, but haven’t availed myself of it. I have connected my PG&E account to other services, and haven’t seen anything untoward from the. From the video, it sounds like OhmConnect primarily taps into PG&E to do normal load forecasting. Doesn’t seem like ti does much to help you save, but tells you when it’s most valuable to save.
I have been a member for 2+ years.
Back then it was way more easy to save & earn.
I sometimes earned $80 per event (x 4 per month) during the summer.
Once person (San Diego CA) “bragged” about his earnings publicly:
He got a 1099 from OC in 2017 for $2813.59
But he rigged the system. He knew that eg Ohmhour event would most likely be from 7-8pm.
He would start charging his EV around that time all days of the week, upping the average usage.
When the ohmhour event would occur, his savings would be stellar and get a huge reward.
Enough to pay for charging his EV during “expensive time”
But those days have gone, they changed the rules/earnings
They didn’t have active support for a long time.
When they changed that, the support people coming/going was mind staggering.
They had their own forum which they shut down in 2019.
After that they went to FB only (which I refuse to use)
Look at some old postings, just for fun: https://forum.ohmconnect.com/discussions
In short:
Imo it is no longer worth your time and effort.
But I might be wrong and you might like sitting in the dark, during a heat wave with no AC to earn $1-$3
LOL… Thanks for the feedback and your opinion/experience… This is exactly the kind of info I was hoping for…
Ha, ha… Yeah, probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to sit in the dark with my AC off on a hot day for a couple of bucks… (great visual, by the way)…
Wow… Actually the size of the rebate is higher than I thought… $50.00 is real money… I was thinking that OhmConnect was more like “coupon clipping” where I could save a few pennies…
However, I do agree with you that 4 hours without electricity is pretty crazy… Basically signing up for a four hour power outage is nuts…even for $50.00…
I was under the impression that OhmConnect was all about making easy electric reduction decisions, like turning off extra lights and reducing cooling by raising the thermostat a couple of degrees… But as I read more about this program, many are going to their main panel and shutting off their mains to reduce their usage to nothing!!! That sounds nuts…
I get the model where you make small reductions, and if everyone makes small reductions, it adds up to a big impact… But turning off your mains in the middle of a heatwave???
I used to be enrolled in a PG&E program that gave me some rate reduction in exchange for them being able to throttle my AC condensers when demand was extremely high. That was kind of automatic, but faded away a few years ago. I stopped using when I installed solar and more efficient units. I think they only offer similar to industrial users today.
