Will consumers want smart meters?

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  1

  day1955@...

  09/23/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Will consumers want smart meters?

  I live in Canada and we already have 'Smart Meters'. We as consumers, were not given a choice to either continue with our old meter or upgrading to the smart meter. i feel as a consumer that I should have a choice and not have something rammed down my throat.
  How do I know what this technology can or cannot do ? During this recession people are having a difficult time keeping up with bills. Will the utilities be able to shut off your power by remote control and if so are they going to charge an over-inflated price to turn it back on? The utilities need to have some kind of limitations as to what this new technology can do and the consumer should have the right to know what this cna do for them.

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  2

  Professor8

  09/25/09 | Report as spam

  He?? no!!! we don't want idiot meters

  Here, these idiot meters (like idiot kkkards) are a scam to mask additional rate
  increases and massive privacy violation. When the higher bill comes out and
  people complain, they simply compare the transferred reading to the digital reading
  displayed on the meter, and declare that it's working properly. (An honest check
  would be to compare the idiot meter reading with the reading on an old-fashioned
  electromagnetic motor meter on the same line.)
  
  Besides, it's TMI to be giving the government and/or the utility company access to,
  and experience shows they're already abusing the info they have.
  
  They weren't so bad in the 1980s when you could opt-in or opt-out. And if you
  opted-in, you got a significantly cheaper rate in exchange for an agreement that
  they could turn your electricity off for up to 15 minutes at a time. It was a win-win
  deal, since the company/government didn't have to spend as much on expensive
  peak generating units. (Then again, firms which made such agreements in
  California still whined when they were actually called in, as it were, so they shut off
  wide regions of customers in areas that had no dearth of supply, just to even out
  the pain... Of course, these days, the environmentalist whackoes have forced
  most places to use the expensive gas-fired units as their primary generating
  capacity.)

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  3

  femtobeam@...

  09/30/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Will consumers want smart meters?

  As the energy grid becomes the master regulator of energy usage and communications networks, the savings they would make by greater fine tuning of energy use at peak times is not passed onto the consumer as savings. The potential for price gouging is great and so is electronic tampering, a bit like the Diebold voting machines.
  
  They are also going into the Internet business with communications over the power lines and instead of seeing themselves as a lower priced alternative to network providers, they see this as an opportunity to slow Internet traffic and raise rates. They should be regulated from the beginning.
  
  More importantly, the forced buyback into the grid for those who invest in solar and other technologies is not effective against inflation and the high cost of investment in new energy. Cost effective and efficient "on site" independent power at homes and businesses, like solar panels, do not supply the need for power at peak times such as hot days in summer and cold nights in winter. Appliances require a great deal of power and so do new communications technologies. Add to that an electric car and the demand for power is going to increase, not decrease. Households cannot plan the investment in these technologies in comparison to the power rates because they cannot predict what will happen to the rates.
  
  The power companies are then faced with paying higher prices for polluting power sources like coal and petroleum, or investing in new infrastructures like new battery storage technology, Algae biomass co-located plants, solar and wind in order to supply power at the same rates they do now.
  
  More likely is a standoff that will result in higher prices and less power to consumers, who will be forced to build new power plants in their towns, pay high prices for power, cut back on energy they currently use, while trying to trade off appliances for communications equipment, neither of which they can live without these days.
  
  The hidden agenda of the power companies is the ability to access and manipulate computer technology and other devices through the electrical wiring, itself hazardous to the brain and body health of people.

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  4

  sk.dunnage@...

  09/30/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Will consumers want smart meters?

  Look fool. Existing Practices indicate that the intelligence of the meter has nothing to do with shutting of a person's electricity.
  
  As the Utilities say: Just Do It

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  5

  Tony R.

  09/30/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Will consumers want smart meters?

  Avoid anything that uses the adjective "smart" in the description. It will invariably treat you, the end user, like an idiot.
  
  For those of us who live in states that have "baseline usage" metering for residential users, e.g., California, our efforts would be better spent in cleaning up corrupt Public Utilities Commissions and ousting crooked state politicians who aid and abet such bureaucracies.

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  6

  zdmo

  10/20/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Will consumers want smart meters?

  Of course we want smart meters, but on our terms, not the government's or the utilities.
  
  We're faced with a government that wants to install remote-controlled thermostats, so they can, in their best Jimmy-Carter fashion, dictate to us what is the "proper" temperature, and punish us if we dissent. (Watch for future implementation, in which red or blue households are singled out for "special" consideration, especially when Uncle takes over the utility.)
  
  We're seeing so-called "smart meters" being forced upon us, even though they only have high-and-low cost options, and our rates will be raised to pay for them. Yay. What about those of us who don't use that much juice to begin with? Why not invest the $500 meter cost in energy efficiency instead?
  
  Instead of everyone getting a "smart meter", why not spend the money on a down-payment on a solar PV system? Your choice: a "smart meter" or a 200 watt panel.
  
  Households use 20% of the electric power in California. Why are we focusing so much on the home, when 80% of the power is consumed elsewhere?
  
  I'd welcome a smart meter. But not if my bill goes up $10 a month to pay for it.