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If you're a fan of "smart" home energy devices--particularly to a degree that you like the ability to turn things on and off remotely from your phone--then you're probably the kind of person who will enjoy using OhmConnect. Though you will have to live in California, New York, or Texas to do it.
OhmConnect's goal is to reduce strain on the electric grid during times of high usage. It accomplishes this by identifying stretches of time when usage is predicted to be especially high ("OhmHours"), alerting users of when this will be, and then paying out rewards to those who use less power than they usually would during that timeframe. OhmHours are usually an hour or two long, and often, but not always, in the high-usage hours around 6-8 pm. Rewards are described in more detail below, but initially users are simply paid a number of "watts" that can be traded for prizes.
They're able to do this by participating in the energy market as though they were a power plant. Whatever energy their users don't use during an OhmHour is equivalent to energy generated, which they get paid for. Ideally, the amount of energy saved will be enough that it removes the need to turn on an extra fossil-fuel power plant to meet the high demand, or prevents rolling blackouts.
For this to work, they need access to your account with your power company. It's also a lot easier to participate if you have a "smart" thermostat and/or outlets. Several platforms for managing these remotely can be connected to OhmConnect so that these devices will turn off automatically during OhmHours.
Of course, this means you need a reliable set of smart plugs. TP-Link (with the Kasa app) was their recommended brand when they first started out, but they can be unreliable. I've ordered several of their plugs that turned out to just be dead on arrival, or that worked for a while but then just...stopped. And there is really nothing you can do once a plug gets in this state and even a full reset doesn't work. It's just a brick at that point. I haven't yet tried OhmConnect's own brand of plugs (which uses their own app); based on the reviews on their site, it seems other people have had similarly mixed results. Perhaps the underlying hardware is the same. Incidentally, this is one of a few reasons I'm reluctant to use any "smart" fixture that is more "built into" the house, like a smart light switch.
Thankfully, the plugs I have that do work are soldiering on.
As for what the "rewards" are: there is an option to simply cash them in for money via a PayPal account, get a gift card, or donate to the California State Parks Foundation. The conversion rate may fluctuate--and is always better if you wait until you have a streak built up--but seems to be roughly 6,000 watts per 10 dollars at the highest tier, with gift cards being slightly more effective than cash. They put a lot more hype behind the options of trading watts for items (smart outlets, branded swag) or for chances to enter drawings for large prizes (which is probably the most cost-effective reward from their perspective, because they only have to give out one prize no matter how many watts people spend on trying to win it).
As of late summer 2022, some especially potent OhmHours also come with a gift card prize for reducing usage by 90% or more. If you earn a gift card this way you need to claim it within a few days, and then it works like any other gift card distributed online.