Posted on 04/26/2010 6:53:07 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
After months of denying any technical problems with its smart meter program, PG&E publicly acknowledged Monday a range of glitches affecting tens of thousands of the digital meters
But the San Francisco-based utility said it had found just 8 meters that inaccurately reported a customer's energy use. It would not say how many of the 5.5 million meters installed so far have been tested for accuracy after installation.
PG&E detailed 43,376 cases in which the meters were involved in other kinds of problems. It said 23,000 meters were installed improperly, 11,376 failed to retain consumer usage information and 9,000 had trouble connecting with the wireless network.
"No technology is infallible. No technology is completely immune to human error. And, to my knowledge, no one at PG&E has made such a claim," Helen Burt, PG&E senior vice president and chief customer officer, said in prepared remarks before a California Senate hearing Monday. "Last fall, when we said 'the meters work,' we meant it. They do. But that doesn't mean that every single one of them works 100 percent of the time."
A PG&E spokesman said "a few" customers received bills that did not reflect their actual energy usage, but declined to be more specific. It urged any customers who have concerns about their electric usage or bills to call PG&E directly.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
PG&E Smart MEter problems
PG&E acknowledged a variety of problems with its smart meter program Monday, including:
Accuracy: 8 of the 5.5 million meters installed so far were found to not measure electric use accurately.
Communication problems: 9,000 meters had trouble connecting with the wireless network.
Data Storage: 11,376 meters measured customer usage data correctly but did not retain it.
Human Error: 23,000 meters were not installed properly.
To contact PG&E”s Smart Meter phone line, call 866-743-0263.
Very few customers will get their money back, if they do what Texas did.
Our neck of the woods is on the list for these little bastards.
Seems like these are less than smart meters. They use the same technology as Obamacare uses for electronic health records.
What did Texas do?
Thats less than 1% error rate on these things, which is quite good considering the nature of the swap.
And way fewer affect customers charges. Misinstalled or non-communicating meters aren’t the customers loss, they are the utilities, they impede collections.
Many of the complaints are the result of old broken slow meters being replaced and the utility finally getting accurate usage information - former free-riders are getting proper bills.
In a way this whole controversy is pretty Luddite. Automated meters are going to replace human meter readers no matter what. On the whole these things improve the accuracy of readings.
. . .Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient. It came to Mr. (Al)Gore’s firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital providers, looking for $75 million to expand its partnerships with utilities seeking to install millions of so-called smart meters in homes and businesses.
Mr. Gore and his partners decided to back the company, and in gratitude Silver Spring retained him and John Doerr, another Kleiner Perkins partner, as unpaid corporate advisers.
The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts. Kleiner Perkins and its partners, including Mr. Gore, could recoup their investment many times over in coming years. . .
Some people got a discount and or refund. Not us. The software has to be redone, apparently it was charging a higher price per kw hour or something.
I think my sister was overcharged by at least $100 a month for 4 months but we’ll never see a refund.
We'll ignore the "lawsuit is entirely without merit" response to the Bakersfield lawsuit.
We'll ignore the "lawsuit is entirely without merit" response to the Bakersfield lawsuit.
How do you install a meter wrong?
It could be that the Bakersfield lawsuit specifically is indeed entirely without merit, while errors happened in other cases. Both statements can be true.
Meter reading the old way could generate similar errors, and in fact probably did so much more often. Visually reading meters is subject to lots of human error. There are plenty of “meter-readers tales” in the business.
I’m not sure, thread it bad, wire it bad, any nearby electrical interference? lots of things I guess could go wrong.. I’d keep the meter readers,, these things have some work needed
Quite a few, with these.
1. Bad contacts
2. Connecting the wrong (not live) wires from the conduit
3. Poor grounding
4. Meter authentication code not properly set
Retrofitting meters on existing, sometimes century-old installations can be challenging.
etc.
We’re still low tech. They just walk by, point and click.
Meter-readers are expensive. Robo-meters are cheap, or will be. They are pretty standard in many countries.
For the most part utilities aren’t volunteering to do this for fun, they are usually reacting to pressure from the Public Utilities Commissions.
Doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult.
Try do 100 correct in a row - no errors allowed. All in different locations in a wide variety of configurations.
Discounting equipment failures (bad signal, etc.), this project is doing @ 200 units correctly for every error.
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