Posted on 07/04/2010 8:52:29 AM PDT by martin_fierro
Pacific Gas & Electric informs that it's going to install a "Smart Meter" on my house.
There's no shortage of recent stories on FR about what a potential nightmare this Stimulus-funded boondoggle could be.
So before I go out to celebrate the Fourth I wanted to hear from those FReepers who have already had one of these things put on their homes. Did your utility bills suddenly increase (decrease)? Was your service in any way affected by this new meter?
My cousin had one installed at her apt in Plano. her electric jumped to near $300. She is single, has a two bedroom apt and works a LOT. Leaves at 9 am and doesn’t get home until after 9 at night - six days a week. Her bill before they installed the “smart” meter was around $90. She had two months of bills for over $700. She refused to pay and looked for a different electric provider. Her first full months bill with the was $75. A LOT of people in the Dallas area are really upset with the “smart” meters. I told her to get in with all the complaints. They tested the meters and found “nothing” wrong. BTW the high bills were in December/January. She had NEVER had an bill that was near that high before the “smart” meter.(She said the most she paid was $120)
Type into your favorite search engine....Bakersfield Smart Meters.
People here have complained since they were installed that their bills doubled and some even tripled.
Ofc this was NEVER PG&E’s fault but because it is so hot here. ;)
That being said, our power bills have repeatedly and consistently increased over the past few years, even as our electricity usage has decreased ~ because they keep raising, raising, raising the darn rates. In fact, I don't think people realize how ridiculously many rate increases and seasonal adjustments PG&E makes ~ so I think some people tend to blame their higher power bills on the smart meters (as opposed to skyrocketing rates!)
In some cases, I also suspect that some of the older meters that were out there (some 20 years old) may not have been terribly accurate, so that some people -- like my neighbors -- had abnormally lower power bills than the rest of us, for years (and we could never figure out why.) Now their bills are much higher, but their KwH usage is in line with what a lot of us are seeing.
I believe it is possible to have an electrician install a meter for you on your main. Gives you documentation that the company’s meter is inaccurate.
I believe it is possible to have an electrician install a meter on your main. Gives you documentation that the company’s meter is inaccurate.
Our power company used a lot of the money from Katrina payouts (Mississippi) to do things like tag and geo-locate their assets and install these new “smart” digital meters. Of course, they still haven’t bothered to replace the power pole that has been leaning over ever since the hurricane.
Their claim is that the meters save “us” the expense of having the meter reader come around. Our bills have not changed appreciably—we use “budget billing” where we pay the 12-month average of last year’s usage.
What it really saves is them from having to face a customer, whether it be at reading time or when they decide to shut off somebody’s power. I say it that way because those decisions are not evenly applied. Decisions about whose power gets cut off for non-payment can be dramatically effected by the demographic and political affiliation of the customer.
My cousin could not afford that. She has numerous other people to get with up there in Dallas who are in the same boat. The power company was turning people electric off for non-pay. They just say the meters are not the trouble. there “must” be some up-age of usage and they just won’t listen. From what I hear there are some politicians who are going to get an investigation started. If it was a few that would be one thing, but there are a LOT of people who have had at least doubled electric bills.
If it was made by Apple, you would have lined up to get one months ago.
I’m just hopin’ its OS is Linux-based, so that I have a prayer of tweaking it.
Probably some PLC’s. Better get Cougar to look at it, when he had a real job he was good at this stuff.
Sounds like another way to keep track minute details of your life. You use your grocery savings card and your spending habits end up in a database, you get a smart meter, and a database if build of your power use habits. Before long the computers can anticipate your movements before you actually make them. Then they will take over the world and eliminate us as obsolete.
I smell a class-action lawsuit.
If there are indeed a lot of people affected, she will have no trouble finding a hungry attorney willing to front the money needed to demonstrate the power company is ripping off its customers. If it can be proven the company was doing this intentionally or even negligently, there is perhaps the possibility of punitive damages, which gets attorneys drooling all over the place.
Of course, there is also the at least equally possible scenario that her former meter was inaccurate and she got a free ride for a bunch of years.
That’s what I first thought (that she’d gotten a free ride) and that’s why I was really interested in seeing what her first full months bill was after the change in providers. $75. I am telling you this woman uses the least amount of electricity. We thought it might have been the water heater - element out and raising her bill. Not so. She works her butt off and only has one day a week that she is home during the day. She’s only home after 9 at night and leaves by 9 in the morning and I know her two cats aren’t watching tv and using the electric during the day LOL
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