Just Say No to Big Brother’s Smart Meters by Orlean Koehle
SmartMeter customers; Story: Smart meter investigation hits more delays; Story: Commission to investigate PG&E 'smart meters' (
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/7_on_your_side&id=7406652)
Some SmartMeters are Heating Up and Charging Higher Costs
I heard on the radio May 3, 2011, the news that some SmartMeters were inaccurate for another reason. When the temperature around the meter is over 100 degrees, they would get too hot and err in their calculations, causing a higher billing for their customers. This was reported the same day in the San Francisco Chronicle, 6/3/2011, “PG&E Finds Some SmartMeters Erred When too Hot,” by David R. Baker, Staff Writer. (
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/02/BU8J1JATB0.DTL#ixzz1LQP2zUTU According to the article, PG&E promises to make it up to the customers by replacing the
faulty meters, giving them refunds (averaging $40) and also a free home energy audit, as well as a $25 credit for the inconvenience. “It's a proactive response. We want to do right by our customers," said Greg Kiraly, PG&E's vice president of SmartMeter operations. Who made the faulty meters? They were made by Landis+Gyr, which has supplied roughly 2 million meters to PG&E. “It's a very small number - less than 1,600," said Jerry Figurilli, Landis+Gyr's chief operating officer in North America. "Nonetheless, it is a number greater than zero, so we're not happy about that." Who will have to pay for the installation of new meters? “The faulty meters remain under
warranty from Landis+Gyr, so replacing them won't cost PG&E customers,” said utility spokesman Blair Jones. Could there be more meters affected? Until May, Northern California has had unusually cold weather. Now that the sun is shining and temperatures are rising, maybe there will be far more SmartMeters that are being heated by the hot sun and there could be far more than just 1,600 meters giving faulty readings.
Is that what happened in Bakersfield in 2009? Mark Toney, Executive Director of TURN, The Utility Reform Network, a watchdog group who is asking for the CPUC to have a moratorium against any more SmartMeter deployment, believes that this could explain the thousands of complaints that came from Bakersfield about the unusually high spike in their utility rates during the summer of 2009, just after the SmartMeters were installed. What has all the deployment of SmartMeters cost PG&E so far? This article states that for the installation of over 8 million meters, it is costing $2.2 billion. Their goal is to still install 2 more million meters in Northern California. What are other problems? There has been software glitches, lost data, installation problems, and inaccurate reporting of usage:
While PG&E has defended the overall accuracy of the meters, the company has previously reported other problems with the devices. Some meters, for example, suffered a software glitch that caused the component that stores energy-use data to reboot itself, occasionally losing some of the data. And an installation problem with some of the company's natural gas SmartMeters caused the devices to either double each customer's apparent usage or cut it in half. (The article appeared on page D-1 of the San Francisco Chronicle) (
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/02/BU8J1JATB0.DTL#ixzz1LQOiFLZI)
Mountain View couple expected to get $1,400 refund from PG&E for
SmartMeter glitch by Dana Hull (
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_17994453) 5/4/11 This story tells of a Mountain View couple, Vera Sokolova and Alexei Kacharovsky's, who received a SmartMeter in November of 2009. One month later their bill had tripled, to $569.58, though they had not used any more electricity than the last month. The couple discovered that the SmartMeter triggered a motion detector, turning on a flood light that
7
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165