Control Your Home's Temperature Online with the BGE Peak Rewards Thermostat

Recently, my family signed up for the BGE Peak Rewards Program. As customers of Baltimore Gas & Electric, we can receive a substantial savings on our monthly energy bill in exchange for allowing BGE to adjust the temperature in our home during periods of peak demand in the summer months. As part of our participation in the BGE Peak Rewards program, BGE installed a special programmable thermostat in our home. This BGE thermostat allows BGE to "cycle" our air conditioner during the summer. Since it is programmable, you can also schedule the temperature in your home to automatically change during different times of day, allowing you to save on heating & cooling costs while you are away at work or sleeping.

Recently, I logged into the BGE Website and was pleasantly surprised by something I saw. After logging in, I clicked the link that said "Manage My Peak Rewards Settings" and I found out that I was actually able to control the temperature in my home just by logging into the BGE website. I could make a one-time, immediate temperature adjustment, which is great if you are at work and remember you forgot to turn off the heat before you left or decide you want to come home to a warmer house. I also had the ability to set my thermostat's entire schedule, which is much more convenient than doing it on the small touch screen of the BGE Peak Rewards thermostat.

I played around with this new found ability to adjust my thermostat via the BGE website for awhile. In my experiments, changes you make online take just seconds to be remotely sent to the thermostat in your house. I find the whole thing very high-tech and intriguing. It is important to note, however, that communication is "one-way" to your thermostat from BGE. This means that the BGE website can't tell you the current temperature in your home or what your current thermostat schedule is. This is probably because of both privacy concerns and technological limitations.

The ability to control your home's temperature online is not advertised by BGE, but I think it is a very nice added "perk" of the Peak Rewards program. With more people working long hours and traveling for business these days, I can see how the ability to set your thermostat from a website would be very appealing to a lot of people. The best part about it is that BGE will install the Peak Rewards programmable thermostat in your home for free, and you can save a lot of money on your electric bill by participating in the Peak Rewards program. For more information about BGE Peak Rewards, visit the website listed in the resources section of this article.