ComEd customer who had smart meter fire describes 'huge flames'

Shirley Bayliff's smart meter, post-combustion.

By Steve Daniels September 12, 2012

(Crain's) — A River Forest resident whose smart meter was the first of three locally to combust since Commonwealth Edison Co. began installing digital meters in 2010 said she was surprised to read ComEd's description of the three incidents as “small fires.”

“We saw huge flames,” Shirley Bayliff recalled of the June 2010 day when she and her husband witnessed the fire emanating from a digital meter ComEd had installed at her home 71 days before. “Luckily, there wasn't much damage because (the house) was brick . . . When the firemen arrived, the lieutenant said if we lived in a wood house they'd be ripping off the shingles and hosing down the attic right now.”

Ms. Bayliff said she was teaching a student to play piano on a hot summer day when she and her husband heard a strange “pop” noise and the power cut off. They found the source of the noise and were horrified to see five-foot flames shooting out of the new digital meter. “Very, very scary,” she said.

Ms. Bayliff then said ComEd compounded the problem by initially refusing to reimburse her for the $2,900 cost of replacing a melted window screen and repairing the wiring inside her home. The utility took the position that the meter didn't cause the fire and instead it was due to connection issues with the home's wiring, which is the responsibility of the homeowner.

After several rejections, ComEd relented and agreed to cover the cost after Ms. Bayliff said she wouldn't give the company the remnants of the destroyed smart meter unless it paid for the damage, she said.

Another view of Ms. Bayliff's smart meter, post-fire.

“We talked about it being a public safety issue,” she said. “Once I got their attention, they were very accommodating.”

Since then, of the 130,000 smart meters ComEd installed as part of a pilot program launched in 2010, there have been two more smart-meter fires, one in 2011 and one in July of this year. Those two were at homes in River Forest and Berwyn. All of the fires first came to light late last month after ComEd's sister utility in Philadelphia, Peco Energy Co., suspended its smart meter installation program after a serious fire at a Bucks County, Pa., home.

After securing passage last year of a state law permitting ComEd to hike electricity delivery rates annually over the next decade, the utility plans to install the digital meters, which will enable remote monitoring of usage and real-time notification of outages, in all 3.8 million of the homes and businesses it serves. Installation won't begin until next year, and ComEd says it's hired a third-party firm to investigate the causes of the fires and 15 other smart-meter overheating incidents. It also is monitoring temperatures daily at the 130,000 smart meters it's using right now, something it can do remotely only with digital meters.

In an e-mailed response to questions, ComEd said that it has averaged three claims for fires at meters, either digital or analog, annually over the past five years for a system that has 4 million meters. That compares with one smart-meter fire per year on a base of 130,000 meters over the last three years.

Regarding Ms. Bayliff's account, ComEd said, “An independent testing laboratory determined that the smart meter was not the cause of the problems. The cause was related to fitting and connection issues with an older-model socket that had a poor connection at the point where the customer's wires and ComEd's wires meet.”

ComEd said the testing found the same cause in the second fire, and the third one remains under investigation.

Said Ms. Bayliff: “When you're retrofitting old homes, it will be an issue . . . Obviously, the meter caused the fire.”

As for reimbursing customers for damages in fires like Ms. Bayliff's, ComEd declined to say what it did in the other two incidents, citing customer privacy. But it added, “We don't typically reimburse claims for damages to customer-owned equipment. However, claims are handled on a case-by-case basis.”

Ms. Bayliff insisted on a traditional analog meter to replace the smart meter that burned.

She contended that that the analog meters don't contain the same amount of flammable materials that the digital meters do, so that if there is a loose wiring connection that results in excessive heat it won't be as likely to burst into flame.

Asked if analog meters were less of a fire hazard than smart meters, ComEd said, “Some components of smart meters are constructed with plastic molded resin. This is the same material that meter manufacturers have used for more than 40 years to construct components of analog meters . . . We are comprehensively testing through independent laboratories the design and materials of the meters we intend to place on our customers' homes and businesses. We expect results prior to our smart meter deployment.”

The Illinois Commerce Commission, which regulates utilities, has met with ComEd since Crain's first reported about the fires and asked for information about the incidents. The agency expects answers within the next few weeks, Executive Director Jonathan Feipel told commissioners in a briefing Tuesday.

Read more: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20120912/NEWS11/120919936/comed-customer-who-had-smart-meter-fire-describes-huge-flames#ixzz26kJjdkgF
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