Posted on 04/07/2011 8:45:08 AM PDT by Clint Williams
After being directed to create a SmartMeter opt-out proposal by the California Public Utilities Commission early last month, PG&E released a proposal that has angered customers who are frustrated with the high costs of disabling the meters, considering that they never gave their consent for installation.
The opt-out proposal, which was released March 24, allows customers to disable the radios inside their gas or electric meters with the option of either paying a $135 up-front fee followed by a $20 monthly charge or a $270 up-front fee followed by a $14 monthly charge to cover the costs of implementing the program, which involves sending workers to manually read meters. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycal.org ...
They have to install a load switch on your air conditioner. The load switch is controlled by the meter, which gets a signal from the power utility to being "shedding" (technical term) loads. Your specific house is not targeted. Usually, it's a particular area in the utility's grid.
Not done in practice. Only disconnect meters are targeted specifically, and that is to turn off your juice because you didn't pay your bill. People, I know what I'm talking about here. Please turn down the paranoia knob.
You do that, and the utility company is going to roll a truck to find out why your meter isn't reading. They find you sabotaged it, and you may find yourself with a summons; utility fraud is a felony.
Surgical removal is indicated.
Is that a phenomena of the south? Living in a northern clime I’ve never hear of such a thing. The power company access rights end at the meter socket here.
I talk to a lot of people who have their bills double after the smart meters were installed.
Yeah I think people realize it’s not done in practice. But with the way things are going, how many more years before it is like that? 10? 20?
Automobiles put buggy whip workers out of work, too. Geez. Luddies on FR?
Electric meters have to be changed out every few years anyway. They get out of calibration. Might as well go back with a smart meter, because companies like mine make that attractive. You see, we hate manufacturing the old "spinny disk" electromechanical meters. We want to go to all-electronic meters. Not only do our customers (the utilities) love them, it's good for us, too, because we can improve accuracy and make more money on them.
Please don't tell me you think us making money is evil. It pays my salary and that of 2,000 others.
And it is horrendously bad marketing and messaging. No wonder people are angry. If it is as simple and wonderful and convenient as you claim, it could have been sold to consumers as an advantage, or in a way that shows they are offering a discount for participation; instead the utility is cramming it down people's throats. Stick with engineering, public policy and marketing obviously aren't your strong points.
Really? They installed radios on a copper interface with your house that delivers power? A clever grasshopper could have used the already available copper path to transmit the telemetry back to the Mother Ship without using radio frequencies. No messing with the FCC for reserving free transmission bandwidth and limits on transmitter power to boot. Instead they are making available to anyone interested their customer’s data never know the data has been compromised.
Good plan!
The NappyOne
What you said is true, but not the whole point by any means. What they really want to do is have a sliding pay scale for their power. If they have to turn on the old gas boilers or buy their power during peak hours from out-of-state generation then they want to know how much you use WHEN you use it so they can adjust your KPH charge accordingly.
Also what they want more that the meters is the ability to control your air conditioning and hot water tank thermostat (if electric) so they can shut down literally millions of them at their convenience during peak hours or the day. This will lower their dependence on purchasing power from other producers which is not nearly as profitable as generating all they need with what they have, keeping the higher profit margin in-house and not giving it to their competitors.
I just switched to fiber internet, provided by the local electric provider. When they installed the fiber, they also changed out the watthour meter for a new electronic design that is tied to the fiber for the purpose of communication. I don't know if it's a smart meter, a dumb meter, or what, but as it stands now, my bill is still based on monthly KWH readings presumably provided by the meter directly to the utility.
It is rumored that we will soon have time-of-use rates made available as an alternative, but right now, that isn't an option. Load-controlling isn't an option here at this time either, though that could be a future option as well.
Given that my 3-ton AC could barely keep the house below 80 when it was 100 outside last summer, I don't think that I would choose to allow direct control of my HVAC by the utility.
BTW, only Jim Robinson has a magic zot beam. :-)
Geeee... uhhh.... why di'uh we thinkuh that.... we must be duuuuuuuuumm not "clever grasshoppers".
Please. My company does this for a living. We know the score. There are a thousand issues with power line carrier systems. You can get FAR more bandwidth with a radio system.
Hit them on it, hard. There is a federal law that utilities MUST provide time of use rates. That is the carrot to get people to use load shedding: it saves you money.
can’t these things be set up for one-way telemetry (send usage data to the utility) while disabling the Orwellian “central control” abilities coming the other way?
Where's the fraud?
KMA. I never said they were! Engineers make sure your power comes on when you flip the switch, and make sure your turds go down the pipes. You should maybe appreciate that once in awhile. Public policy and marketing don't keep the lights on.
Mostly those growing pot indoors. Doesn't affect your average user people.
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