What if you got paid to use less power during heat waves?

But there's a catch — you may need to hand over control of your thermostat to a utility company

During heat waves like the one currently blasting southern Manitoba, power-hungry air conditioners strain the electrical grid. Now, instead of pushing power plants to generate extra power by burning fossil fuels, some utilities are paying customers like Richardson to become part of what's known as a virtual power plant.

This is a network of devices that generate, use and store energy. It could include smart thermostats, water heaters, electric car batteries and solar panels with battery storage. The key is finding a way to connect and control them all together so that energy saved, stored or released by the small devices on the network eventually adds up to the scale of a physical power plant. 

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