Learn about Seasonal Savings

Seasonal Savings is an energy savings program that’s available on your Google Nest thermostat in winter and summer. It’s like a personal energy assistant that looks for ways to lower your bills, quietly works behind the scenes, and helps you stay comfortable too.

What Seasonal Savings does

Seasonal Savings can give your Nest thermostat’s temperature schedule a tune-up in the early winter and summer by automatically making small changes to some temperatures in your schedule to make them more efficient.

It uses everything your thermostat has learned about your home and temperature preferences to find ways to save energy without compromising comfort. In areas where energy costs peak during certain times of day, Seasonal Savings may focus on saving you energy during those peak times.

When Seasonal Savings adjusts temperatures, the changes it makes are subtle, just a fraction of a degree each day. Over the course of the entire tune-up period, the changes typically add up to about 1°F or 1°C. The biggest temperature adjustments usually happen while you’re asleep or away, so you may never even notice the changes made by Seasonal Savings.

Like any good assistant, Seasonal Savings keeps you in control. So if you don’t like a temperature that it has set for you, you can change it. Your thermostat will learn the new temperature as well as your comfort preferences.

Who can get Seasonal Savings

Seasonal Savings is available on Google Nest thermostats in the US, UK, Ireland, and Canada (except for the province of Quebec) that are set to use English (US) or English (UK) only.

You'll need to have air conditioning to get summer Seasonal Savings and heating to take advantage of winter Seasonal Savings. So Seasonal Savings won’t necessarily be available for everyone, every season.

When you'll get Seasonal Savings

Seasonal Savings will become available early in the winter and summer seasons. Your Nest thermostat will only ask you if you'd like to use Seasonal Savings if it notices opportunities to make small schedule adjustments that could help save you energy while still keeping you comfortable.

If Seasonal Savings can’t find those opportunities for you, or if your Nest thermostat doesn’t have enough temperatures in its temperature schedule, then Seasonal Savings won’t run for that season.

What you'll get before, during, and after Seasonal Savings

Before Seasonal Savings If it's available, you’ll get a notification on your thermostat and on the Nest app. Select Enable, and Seasonal Savings will start to slowly adjust your schedule for the next several days. If you have more than one thermostat, you’ll get a message for each thermostat that qualifies for Seasonal Savings, but you’ll just need to select Enable once.

During Seasonal Savings When Seasonal Savings is helping you save energy, a yellow gear icon with a leaf in the middle  appears. This will appear on your thermostat's screen and in the app. If you change the temperature while Seasonal Savings is running, the icon disappears. Seasonal Savings will learn from the change you made and update how it adjusts the temperature. While Seasonal Savings is running, there will be a banner at the top of the Nest app in Energy History that informs you of its progress. Check your Energy History with the app to check which temperatures were adjusted by Seasonal Savings. Each temperature that Seasonal Savings has changed will have a gold ring around it.

After Seasonal Savings

• You’ll get a notification after Seasonal Savings is complete to tell you that you’ll save energy for the rest of the season if you keep the Nest thermostat's schedule.
• If you have more than one qualified thermostat for Seasonal Savings, you’ll get a separate message for each thermostat’s schedule.

What happens during Summer Seasonal Savings

In the early winter and early summer, Seasonal Savings will look for opportunities to save energy in your schedule. For instance, let’s say your thermostat has a simple temperature schedule that cools to 75°F (24°C) during the day and to 73°F (23°C) at night.

• First, Seasonal Savings can adjust the temperature when you’re not home (Example: the daytime hours when everyone is at work or school). However, many people are home throughout the day. So if you don’t have a conventional “go to work” time, then Seasonal Savings won’t adjust cooling temperatures in the daytime.

• Second, Seasonal Savings will look at your “wake up” and “return home” times (Example: the temperatures you set when you get out of bed or come home from work). If energy demand in your community regularly peaks, then Seasonal Savings may try to save more energy during these peak periods.

• Finally, Seasonal Savings can make small adjustments to your nighttime scheduled temperatures. Staying cool at night is essential to comfortable sleep during warm summer weather, so changes at night will be the most subtle.

Many temperatures on your schedule may not change at all, and those that do should change so slowly and subtly that you’ll hopefully never notice them.

What happens during Winter Seasonal Savings

In the early winter, Seasonal Savings will take advantage of other opportunities to save energy in your thermostat’s temperature schedule. But, it will prioritize how it saves a bit differently than how it does in summer by first trying to save during nighttime instead of during the day.

• First, Seasonal Savings will check if there’s room for improvement in your nighttime temperatures.
  • This is often where most people find the biggest savings, with little to no effect on your comfort.
  • Since these adjustments will come when you’re asleep, you may never even notice they’re happening.
  • If you don’t have a nighttime temperature, Seasonal Savings may create one for you.
• Next, Seasonal Savings may adjust your schedule if you go away regularly. For instance, to work.
  • This is another time where Seasonal Savings may make bigger adjustments, since nobody is at home.
  • If you’re usually at home during the day, Seasonal Savings will make sure you stay comfortable.
  • If energy demand in your community regularly peaks during part of the day, Seasonal Savings may adjust for savings during those periods.
• Lastly, Seasonal Savings may adjust the temperatures when you’re home, but these adjustments will be more subtle to ensure you stay comfortable. Some temperatures on your schedule may not change at all.

Aggregate Winter Seasonal Savings Calculations

We assessed the energy savings from deploying our Seasonal Savings algorithm using a difference-in-difference approach. In this application, we calculated the difference in average daily heating system runtime, for the periods before and after deployment of Seasonal Savings, for those who enrolled compared to those who did not enroll. We did this calculation by postal code to ensure balance between the groups.

Runtime savings were converted to energy savings using the average heating system energy input rate which we estimated based on climate and other factors. This input estimation approach has been shown to provide values that are consistent with US DOE and other relevant empirical data sources.

The energy savings were multiplied by the national average energy prices during the period to calculate monetary savings.

Carbon savings were calculated from the energy savings based on standard fossil fuel emissions rates and, for electric savings, using US EPA AVERT marginal emissions rates for the US.

Specific energy and carbon savings are not guaranteed. Numbers may vary based on time of enrollment in Seasonal Savings, weather, cost of energy, and source of electricity in grid mix.

What to do if you're uncomfortable

If you don't like an adjustment Seasonal Savings has made, you have a few options:

• Change the temperature with the Nest app or Nest thermostat. Your Nest thermostat learns from your adjustments and change its behavior.
  • So if Seasonal Savings sets temperatures 2°F (1.5°C) lower, and you turn it up, then your Nest thermostat will know to make more subtle changes next week.
• You can also edit your thermostat’s temperature schedule for a more permanent change.
• You can turn off Seasonal Savings. Refer to the section below for more details.

How to turn off Seasonal Savings

You’re always in control. If you don’t want to use Seasonal Savings, you can turn it off at any time.

• When you get the Seasonal Savings notification
  • If you don’t want to participate, you can choose No Thanks to opt-out of the program altogether.
• If you’ve already enabled Seasonal Savings, you can manually override temperature adjustments or stop Seasonal Savings altogether.
  • To manually override temperature adjustments, change the temperature on your thermostat or in your schedule.
    • The Seasonal Savings icon  will disappear and won’t appear again until Seasonal Savings makes another temperature adjustment.
    • If you have Auto-Schedule enabled, then Seasonal Savings will use your adjustments to find new, more comfortable tweaks to your schedule.
  • To stop using Seasonal Savings, open the Nest app, go to your thermostat and select History . If Seasonal Savings is running, you will find how many days remain and a Stop button.

Important: If you opt-out or turn Seasonal Savings off, you won’t be able to opt-in to the program again until the next season it becomes available.