The company OhmConnect provides a “demand response” service to consumers in some parts of the country. I tried their service way back in 2014 and was unimpressed: seemed to me very few people would be willing to run around the house turning off lights and delaying dinner during their random “OhmHours” when the grid was particularly stressed.

But now that much of my home is “smart” (connected to the web), and Smart Plugs are cheap, I decided to try it again. The results have been surprising, and quite impressive. Here’s my experience.

Starting in May 2021 I re-engaged my OhmConnect account and connected four devices so they could reach into our home and automatically turn them off. The devices:

1. New Rheem Heat Pump Water Heater that came with wifi
2. The smart thermostat installed with our new Mitsubishi heat pump
3. Tesla EV charger
4. Kasa Smartplug with energy monitoring that I had been using to track the energy use of the various devices that run our freshwater aquarium (lights, filter pump, power head, and heater).

When you connect these automated devices to your OhmConnect account, you automatically earn some “device” points during every OhmHour when they can be turned off. The bigger the potential impact (like EV charging or a water heater), the more points. As a result, I started earning lots of points during every succeeding OhmHour, whether or not I actually saved energy during that hour. But I generally did… because these devices were being automatically turned off.

After earning enough points, you can either transfer the cash to PayPal, OR you can apply them to the purchase of discounted smart plugs.

Four months later, I’ve just earned my 10th Kasa smart plug with energy monitoring. OhmConnect can now control a dozen devices in our home. Here are the things they can temporarily turn off:

5. Kasa Smartplug for chest freezer in garage
6. Kasa Smartplug for main fridge
7. Kasa Smartplug for office equipment
   • 11 devices
   • Critical ones — like the internet modem — are on a UPS backup battery
8. Kasa Smartplug for utility closet equipment
   • 5 devices
   • All are on on a UPS backup battery
9. Kasa Smartplug for TV, stereo, and weather monitor
10. Kasa Smartplug for electric pool cleaner
11. Kasa Smartplug for landscape lighting
12. Kasa Smartplug for dishwasher
13. Kasa Smartplug for Plug n Play Solar Panel

For number 7 and 8, note that I already had UPC backup batteries for these [critical] devices, which kept them running during outages. I updated the size of these UPC devices to keep the devices running for a full OhmHour. So for an hour-long OhmHour, these devices are not affected at all — the Smartplug turns off the power to the UPC, but the UPC keeps all the devices connected to it running until the event is done.

Not only do these additional devices let me earn more and more device points during OhmHours, but each of them provides great insight into the energy use of the device(s) attached to them. For example, here are some load profiles from the connected devices, obtained from my Sense monitor:

Not everyone will be interested in these device load profiles, or the desire to help stabilize the grid during peak demand through “smart” home devices. But I find the two topics fascinating, and encouraging.