“OhmConnect: Quietly Saving California’s Grid During an Historic Heat Emergency”
That’s not just a proud CEO talking – this was the headline in Forbes just a couple days ago.
The heatwave we experienced throughout the western U.S. the past several days was truly historic. High temperature records were broken in dozens of locations. The California grid was strained as air conditioning pushed electricity demand to levels never before seen — over 52 gigawatts at one point, when the average is typically 45 gigawatts.
(Doesn’t sound like a big deal? Over the past 20 years, peak demand only reached 50 gigawatts three times: in 2006, in 2017 and this year.)
On Tuesday, September 6, the State grid operator declared a stage 3 emergency, the last step taken before blackouts begin. We were literally minutes away from widespread outages.
If it were not for the incredible energy savings by OhmConnect members, the State would likely have had to initiate rolling blackouts. We’re still waiting for more data to come in from our utility partners, but it’s safe to say that meaningful reductions helped prevent blackouts in California.
The members of the OhmConnect community dug deep to help prevent blackouts and keep the lights on. Here are some incredible milestones that this community achieved from Wednesday, August 31 through Thursday, September 9 (a whole 10 days!):
I know we asked a lot of you. There were times it felt like the OhmHours were never going to end. But I was incredibly impressed how well we came together and supported each other as a community.
The weather looks a lot cooler for the next week, so hopefully there will be few if any OhmHours. We’ll do our best to give everyone a much deserved break. In the meantime?
We’d love for you to invite your friends, family, social network etc to join the OhmConnect community. Who knows when the next grid emergency may be and like this time around, we’ll need all hands on deck. Plus, you can earn rewards for each new person who joins! Find out more about our referral program here.
Thank you again.
Note: If you contacted our customer support team service in the past few days, please be a bit patient. Our incredible customer team has been working nonstop for 10 straight days, but there is still a backlog. We hope to get to everyone in the next week. Still have questions or concerns about your account or event performance? Reach out to us here.
Each week in March, we're giving away some fabulous prizes. Enter the March 2024 Week 3 Giveaway below! Come back every day to gain additional entries!
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Each week in March, we're giving away some fabulous prizes. Enter the March 2024 Week 1 Giveaway below! Come back every day to gain additional entries!
