Just Say No to Big Brother’s Smart Meters by Orlean Koehle
Be it further resolved that the Sonoma County Republican Central Committee urges other County Central Committees to take similar action and urge all their members to join a state-wide protest; post a sign above their meter stating they refuse the SmartMeter and tell PG&E not to install it. Then call their city council members and board of supervisors and urge them to join with other cities in California and pass an ordinance banning it. (Those cities who have such an ordinance are Santa Cruz, Watsonville, Fairfax, and possibly San Anselmo.) (More information can be found at
www.refusesmartmeter.com.)
Is the Smart Meter Really Saving People Money on Their Energy Costs?
PG&E officials use the excuse for installing the meters that the whole purpose behind the SmartMeter program is to save energy, and customers will be able to save energy costs. However, we hear from so many who have already received their meters that it is just the opposite. Their energy costs have doubled or tripled and yet they have not increased any use of their energy. Some people have not even been home. They have been on vacation and yet their bill from PG&E had tripled. Some people are still protesting their bills; others have given in and paid. One family was even forced to leave their home as the following news article reveals:
San Francisco Chronicle / “Polaris” January 28, 2011, by Brent Ward: When Claudia Salada opened her utility bill earlier this year, she went into sticker shock. Salada, an administrative assistant in Fremont, Calif., was accustomed to paying about $500 a month for gas and electricity for the three dwellings her family inhabited on a single lot. But her jaw dropped when she saw her July bill: $2,000. "I thought it was a mistake," says Salada. "Paying $2,000 for utilities is ridiculous,
and I don't have that kind of money." Salada's big bill arrived a month or so after the local utility installed so-called smart
meters on her property. These devices, millions of which have been deployed nationwide, wirelessly transmit information about household energy use to utilities. The system is designed to cut costs in two ways: it eliminates the need to send out meter readers, and it provides real-time consumption data, which enables utilities to charge lower rates during off-peak hours. The idea is to encourage consumers to change their energy-intensive ways; a decision as simple as when to run the dishwasher can have a significant effect on the bill. But the SmartMeter rollout, which is being funded as part of a $3.4 billion upgrade of the nation's power grid, has been met with thousands of complaints from customers across the country for a variety of reasons. Class actions have been filed alleging overcharging. Tea Party members in Cleveland have decried the meters as a breach of privacy. Three communities in Maine passed resolutions asking the local utility to halt installations until residents can get more information about the potential health hazards of the radio waves emitted by the devices. The loudest protests are coming from California, where Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) has installed some 7 million smart meters. [By May 2011, the number was 8.5 million installed.] When the state's public-utilities commission recently voted down a request to stop deployment of smart meters, one opponent stood up and shouted at the commissioners, "How do you sleep at night?" In December, protesters blocked trucks from leaving a smart-meter installation yard and shut down a customer-service center for a few hours.
Utilities have responded to the outcry by insisting that the meters are accurate. A recent analysis by an independent research firm concluded that the meters worked well and that the higher bills were the result of rate hikes, increased usage during extreme weather and, in some cases, smart meters' replacing malfunctioning units that had been
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