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Oncor has installed more than 760,000 smart meters in Texas
New, two-way smart meters being installed in California by Pacific Gas & Electric have prompted an investigation into potentially unfair spikes in bills to the utility’s customers. Meanwhile in Texas, smart meters being rolled out are causing similar concerns. And there have been questions over privacy issues and what utilities will do with the data they receive about our energy usage via the meters.
This whole, wonderful smart grid is not getting off on the best foot.
Oncor, which operates power lines and installs electricity meters in Texas, has installed more than 760,000 smart meters and is on its way to 3.4 million by the end of 2012, according to a report in the Dallas Morning News.
Yet some receiving the new smart meters are ticked, because their energy bills spiked this winter after the smart meters were installed. Oncor says tests conducted by company show only a fraction of difference in readings from old mechanical meters.
According to The Dallas Morning News:
Oncor has said that in fewer than 1 percent of the cases, the worker who switched the meters made an incorrect final reading of the old mechanical meter. But in other cases, people who use electricity for heat probably consumed more electricity than expected during the record-cold winter.
The Public Utility Commission allows Oncor to charge customers $2.19 a month for 11 years to pay for the meters.
OK, so there could be some reasons for the smart meter rage in Texas. But in California, electric utility PG&E has been under fire from customers who said their electric bills have significantly increased due to its smart meters. There is a concern PG&E either installed faulty smart meter units, or wanted to intentionally overcharge customers. And the California Public Utilities Commission has picked an independent investigator that will be responsible for investigating smart meters installed by PG&E, says Daily Tech.
“These instances underscore the need for utilities to educate their customers as best they can,” says Bill Ablondi, director of home systems for Parks Associates, a market research firm in Dallas, Texas. “Utilities need to explain the benefits of smart meters, how these are being paid for, and any potential problems they may experience when these smart meters are being rolled out.”
“I don’t think we can dismiss the complaints of consumers we’ve heard about, but perceptions are building that smart meters are causing problems, Ablondi says. “Hopefully [these instances] won’t hinder the rollout of smart meters and the smart grid.”
As for energy information being sold to third parties, Ablondi says that in California and Texas, there are laws that state that consumers own their own data, and can sell it. But what of utilities? Can they sell your energy usage data. This is another area that needs to be ironed out before large-scale smart grid services are implemented.
“The introduction of new technological approaches and ways of doing things in the market are always going to cause some disruption, and hopefully this will be all of it,” says Ablondi.
I wish I could say the same. The fact of the matter is that many electric utilities are not adept at customer service, or communicating effectively with their customer base. They largely have not had to—until now. They will have to communicate more effectively with their customers and explain what their customers can expect from smart meters and smart grid services—if we are going to have a smart grid at all.
In Cali, I only have one thing to say. Proposition 16. PG&E is the main backer and basically allows them to become a monopoly of No. Cal. Electrical. Smart Meters = Enron. Except for the fact they can manipulate without failure. Any move by any municipality requires 2/3 majority by 3 -4 different voting boards to change PG&E’s plan. PG&E has put in 35 million into their campaign. The opposition, no thru their own fault but by demographics have only been able to raise 325K. When will America wake up and stop big corp. stop running our lives. I live in an area where our electric is based uopn zip code. Sounds like the old Auto insurance gig to me.
Florida Power and Light has installed them in Ft Lauderdale. I love the daily breakdown of my electric usage I can see with my online bill, I can start to pin down what activity uses more electricity in my home with that kind of detail. My bill has not changed since installation of the meter several months ago.
This BS has now also mades it way to Canada….specifically my province..Ontario.
I came home just last week to find a notice on the door advising that the meter had been changed out while no one was home. The claim is that ALL electric customers in Ontario will be changed over to the new “smart” meter over the next year and that our bills will not be immediately affected, and that with “proper” energy conservation in mind, we “could possibly” see our bills DECREASE.
The problem with this is that only an idiot would not think that this is nothing more than an excuse for a huge money grab with that now all to common “protecting the environment” ruse being used as a smokescreen.
They claim that we should actually be able to see our bills go down! BS !! Does anyone think that these utilities would be spending the umpteen billions on changing out meters if they were going to see their monthly revenue go down!
Sure, I can manually schedule the dishwasher to run during their so-called “off-peak” hours, but can I make my furnace ONLY run during offpeak hours in the winter when its 20 below outside??
Maybe I could only let my refrigerator run only 12 hours out of each day, and manually pull the plug the rest of the time and have my family risk samonella or even worse.
Are businesses going to be mandated to only being able to manufacture their goods in the middle of the night and demand all their employees become night shift workers??
Please pass the Al Gore Kool-Aid.
I am a california customer of PG&E… and I can say that my bill went up probably around 60%... But here’s the kicker… It’s not the meter.. It’s PG&E absolutely raping the H**L out of its customers and there is nothing we can do about it…. They have raised their rates astronomically over the past years and they wont stop… PG&E is the devil…
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I can say that I am appalled at this obvious gouging of people during times when jobs are scarce and families are struggling to survive.
For utility companies to promote and install smart meters under the pretense of reducing electricity consumption while raising prices arbitrarily by 25 % across the board.
Their strategy is and I quote from a manual provided to explain the logic behind the smart meter.
“
encouraging the user to make a more rational (and ultimately efficient) use
of the resources.”
“
Earlier this year a small number of professionals have been working on starting a company based on patent pending technology dedicated to helping consumers faced with ever increasing electricity bills.
We are still in need of dedicated professionals to help us. We need EE’s or EE technicians, programmers or other experienced technical professionals who desire to start this business.
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I have yet to see any legitimate reason for the nearly 25 % across the board increase in electricity prices.
Our cost was 8 cents per kW hour and is now 12 cents per kW hour without explanation or warning.
Presumably customers will pay a premium for any additional electricity they require especially during summer time.
I can;t imagine what trick these utility companies have prepared for us in the near future.
Without any chance for an economic recovery; now we are faced with yet another price increase.
Squeezing us….....
I hope that all of you are aware of the inherent dangers for voting yes on prop 16?