Just Say No to Big Brother’s Smart Meters by Orlean Koehle
Smart-Meter industry could be about to suffer a dramatic setback if health concerns begin to escalate globally. Fears are being further fuelled by fresh safety concerns about the risk of fire from poorly installed Smart Meters. In California, the anti-Smart Metering lobby is claiming that poorly trained engineers are installing potentially lethal smart meters. In Australia, the Electrical Union claims that Energy Safe, the industry regulator, is allowing unqualified subcontractors to install Smart Meters in Victoria. There are also growing concerns regarding privacy issues. Right-wing groups such as the North
Bay Patriots, a Californian affiliate of the Tea Party movement, insist that Smart Meters will be an invasion of privacy. Smart Meters monitor every aspect of domestic energy consumption and allows consumers to monitor and manage their usage in detail. Companies gearing up to network this vast quantity of data include the search engine giant Google. There is, however, concern that by allowing the utilities and companies such as Google to spy on consumers' personal lives, smart metering could further erode personal privacy. By monitoring minute-by-minute energy consumption it would, for example, be easy to deduce when people are home or how many individuals are likely to have been there at any one time. These fears have together created a powerful alliance between California's liberal left, who are
mainly concerned about health issues, and right-wing groups who believe the installation of smart meters are the thin end of a wedge of future state intervention into citizens' personal lives. California's rejection of Smart Meters could also have investment repercussions way beyond
energy-monitoring companies. Smart Metering is a central pillar of President Barack Obama's vision of a "green grid" supplying energy nationwide. Should the US health and privacy fears continue to spread internationally, there could be global consequences.
According to Pike Research, the total installed base of Smart Meters in the Asia Pacific will increase from 52.8 million in 2010 to 350.3m by 2016. But the global growth of the industry in the Asia Pacific and elsewhere will suffer a severe setback should consumer resistance to smart-meter installation continue to grow throughout 2011. (
pf@thenational.ae)
Monterey Resident Pays for her Own Ad Against the Smart Meters
Nina Beety: “It’s Time to Take Action Against Smart Meters” Posted on March
3, 2011 by
onthelevelblog Nina Beety is a Monterey based activist who has
been fighting PG&E’s “stupid meter” assault with a ferocity and a tenacity that must make the executives at PG&E quake in their pricey leather dress shoes. Nina is on disability and low income, but she felt it
important enough that she spent $4100 of her own money last month to place a full page ad in the Monterey Herald that has turned the tables on PG&E in Monterey County’s smart meter debate virtually overnight, with the City of Monterey on Tuesday unanimously demanding that the utility halt any installations within the city. Monterey is the first city in Monterey County to take formal action against ‘Smart’ Meters, and joins 29 other cities, towns, and counties around
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