PG&E came on to my property and installed one when my wife and I were at work. No prior permission or any type of correspondence whatsoever. They just did it and to hell with what I thought about it!That truly sucks. Good, bad or indifferent, you should have been consulted on what gets put on YOUR property.
There is soooo much misinformation and hysterical reaction to all of this.
If they came out and installed a meter without tearing into your house wiring (which I am certain they did not), then the only purpose this type of ‘smart meter’ could serve would be:
1. Automating the reading of your meter.
2. Making it possible to monitor your power usage by day-part. This in turn would allow them to offer you plans based on your peak power consumption (or, to view it negatively, increase the rates for high peak power consumption).
The smart meter may or may not have a wireless communication link, which would go to some wireless access point in the neighborhood, owned by the power company.
The people who are fomenting fear over this type of meter either have an agenda or are just plain nuts. Probably the ringleaders are in it for money or publicity, and the ones they convince are the nuts.
The more common kind of smart meter doesn’t even have a wireless component; it sends and receives its data over the power lines themselves.