There are a few problems with smart meters.
Some folks that have extensive alternative energy systems can program their entire house to go off-grid whenever they want. Folks like this are smart enough to add a 10 or 15 minute guard band around switching off/on before/after peak time periods. They still get charged for peak usage activity, when there is none. Yet another reason I plan to be off-grid eventually.
As has been detailed here and elsewhere, the consumer always pays more. If consumers DO manage to reduce their consumption, then the utility is typically awarded higher rates and or fees to cover the revenue loss.
The pols have used an Enviro/Techno babble smoke screen (quite effectively, I have to grudgingly give 'em that) to hide behind these cost increases. I wish you good luck with it Bird, but I suspect that $2.19/month will just be the beginning. Our provincial cost hike (only one of many) here May 01 is what got me to start this thread.
I do get what it takes to support the electrical infrastructure - costs had to go up. A much better use of money would have been to adjust the base Cents/kwh rate (24 hours a day, No Time of Use nonsense) to where it needed to be to fund repairs/expansion - that way if you use more, pay more - no sane person would have a problem with that. THEN, instead of blowing billions on updating the surveillance net (I'll get back to this), er, I mean the electric grid, THAT money saved could be spent on implementing more utility scale alternative energy projects, or just paying down the debt on existing ones.
Some people object to the surveillance aspect of at new smart meters - pretty easy to detect household activity/useage/occupancy patterns. I won't discuss the personal liberty issues here, as Orwell covered this famously, a long time ago. What I will comment on is security - major corporations have proved time and time again that they can't secure credit card data - I have little faith that my electric data is secure. A LEO told me a long time ago "If you go away on vacation in the summer, don't just turn your AC off". A house with closed windows and no AC running during a heat wave, well, you might as well put out a "Come on In" sign.... Thanks to technology, the bad guys don't even have to drive by to see if you are home. Maybe this is just a plan to save criminals gasoline ?
GO GO GREEN CRIMINALS !!! I'll leave it to the reader to decide if I'm talking about pols, or my neighbourhood ones.
This has become nothing but a money game, at all levels. One of the larger local privatized utilities has acquired a rep as real shake down artists. A buddy of mine moved into a house, a couple of years later this utility changed out the meter (this was before smart meters). Then they send him a bill for a couple of thousand dollars, claiming that the earlier meter "was not accurate". My view would have been, 1) So what, that was your goof, nothing to do with me, 2) if you guys are not competent enough to have a properly working meter in place, how can I believe anything that you say ?
Almost went to court, my buddy settled for about 40 cents on the dollar, of what they were claiming. It was either that, or do without electricity. As I joke about it with my buddy "Almost makes you nostalgic for the old time mob, as these utilities make them look like kindly amateurs !".
I have some visibility into the behind the scenes at said utility. Sad to say, the general environment is deteriorating to the point where it is an unsafe place to work. But, as long as the execs can retain their bonuses, perks and golden parachutes, while minimizing their exposure to jail time, the party goes on. Some smaller jurisdictions have had enough, and are DE-privatizing their utilities - when you live in a small town, your constituents screaming can keep you awake at night.
Dan - good data points about Name Brand appliances that barely make it through the warranty. Unfortunately, this is the rule, not the exception now a days. I see this pattern with most products, even many commercial or industrial ones.
Rgds, D.
