More customer complaints about smart meters
- 8:47 pm, September 17th, 2013
A SMART METER
Credits: CRAIG GLOVER The London Free Press / QMI AGENCY
TORONTO - Angry and profoundly misled.
That about sums up the feelings of increasing numbers of Hydro One customers in Ontario who are finding out more about their newly installed smart meters.
Sold by the politicians as a means of itemizing the domestic or business power bill, users now realize they are capable of much more than that.
The provincewide program to replace relatively simple and inexpensive residential electric meters with a hi-tech version started in 2005. Critics maintain it is a potential cash cow for utilities and meter companies that takes yet another bite from ratepayers and, some say, raises health concerns.
Frank Clegg says enough is enough. He is the CEO of lobby group Canadians For Safe Technology (C4ST) and wants Ontario to follow the lead of B.C. in giving consumers a choice to opt out of smart meters.
Clegg has followed the fortunes of Russell Irwin in his battle and agrees that the wireless grid that will be built on smart meters is increasingly understood as an over engineered, ill-advised, financial boondoggle that comes fully-funded by taxpayer wallets.
"The people of B.C. saw that and lobbied government to back down on the mandatory rollout," Clegg said. "They didn't want the information gathered by smart meters to be taken and shared without consent.
"They also wanted the option to say 'No.' They knew as long as the analogue meters were working they should be left alone. Those who already (have) wireless-enabled smart meters wanted the option to have that component disabled.
"They won on all counts."
Hydro One owns and operates substantially all of Ontario's electricity transmission system, accounting for about 96.8% of the province's transmission capacity as measured by revenues for the year 2012.
According to the Independent Electricity System Operator, once all the Hydro One smart meters in Ontario have been enrolled in the Meter Data Management and Repository (as of Sept. 28, 2012, there were 4,492,097 smart meters enrolled), it will be able to process approximately 110 million meter reads per day.
That's an awful lot of information about our everyday lives and habits in our homes.
To put this in perspective, this exceeds the number of debit card transactions processed in the country per day.
Some smart meter opponents are concerned about privacy (the meters generate a substantial amount of information about customers' power usage), some are worried about possible health effects of radio emissions, and some about cost.
Like Lorna McCabe, of Tottenham. She said her new smart meter is already costing precious dollars and cents.
"I got my Hydro One bill yesterday and with the bill was a newsletter ... from Hydro One," she told the Toronto Sun.
"It says effective May 1, 2013, we will be billed a new Smart Metering Entity Charge of $0.79 per month included under the delivery line of our bill.
"The charge will be in effect until Oct. 31, 2018. This is, according to them, a charge to recover the costs of developing and implementing the provincial Meter Data Management Repository and its information technology to collect and process data from smart meters throughout the province.
"I was never told that there would be a charge for my smart meter and I am livid. Looks like Mr. Irwin is smarter then the rest of us. Wish I had known this, I would never have agreed to have it installed."
As for Russell Irwin, the 91-year-old veteran in Orangeville, he is ready to have his power switched off as threatened by Hydro One but he is not ready to stop fighting, according to his daughter, Randie.
"Dad is an amazing guy and he wants people to know that this isn't about money: It's about choice.
"He fought fires for 35 years and he's tough and I truly admire him for taking on Hydro One."
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2013/09/20130917-204715.html
That about sums up the feelings of increasing numbers of Hydro One customers in Ontario who are finding out more about their newly installed smart meters.
Sold by the politicians as a means of itemizing the domestic or business power bill, users now realize they are capable of much more than that.
The provincewide program to replace relatively simple and inexpensive residential electric meters with a hi-tech version started in 2005. Critics maintain it is a potential cash cow for utilities and meter companies that takes yet another bite from ratepayers and, some say, raises health concerns.
Frank Clegg says enough is enough. He is the CEO of lobby group Canadians For Safe Technology (C4ST) and wants Ontario to follow the lead of B.C. in giving consumers a choice to opt out of smart meters.
Clegg has followed the fortunes of Russell Irwin in his battle and agrees that the wireless grid that will be built on smart meters is increasingly understood as an over engineered, ill-advised, financial boondoggle that comes fully-funded by taxpayer wallets.
"The people of B.C. saw that and lobbied government to back down on the mandatory rollout," Clegg said. "They didn't want the information gathered by smart meters to be taken and shared without consent.
"They also wanted the option to say 'No.' They knew as long as the analogue meters were working they should be left alone. Those who already (have) wireless-enabled smart meters wanted the option to have that component disabled.
"They won on all counts."
Hydro One owns and operates substantially all of Ontario's electricity transmission system, accounting for about 96.8% of the province's transmission capacity as measured by revenues for the year 2012.
According to the Independent Electricity System Operator, once all the Hydro One smart meters in Ontario have been enrolled in the Meter Data Management and Repository (as of Sept. 28, 2012, there were 4,492,097 smart meters enrolled), it will be able to process approximately 110 million meter reads per day.
That's an awful lot of information about our everyday lives and habits in our homes.
To put this in perspective, this exceeds the number of debit card transactions processed in the country per day.
Some smart meter opponents are concerned about privacy (the meters generate a substantial amount of information about customers' power usage), some are worried about possible health effects of radio emissions, and some about cost.
Like Lorna McCabe, of Tottenham. She said her new smart meter is already costing precious dollars and cents.
"I got my Hydro One bill yesterday and with the bill was a newsletter ... from Hydro One," she told the Toronto Sun.
"It says effective May 1, 2013, we will be billed a new Smart Metering Entity Charge of $0.79 per month included under the delivery line of our bill.
"The charge will be in effect until Oct. 31, 2018. This is, according to them, a charge to recover the costs of developing and implementing the provincial Meter Data Management Repository and its information technology to collect and process data from smart meters throughout the province.
"I was never told that there would be a charge for my smart meter and I am livid. Looks like Mr. Irwin is smarter then the rest of us. Wish I had known this, I would never have agreed to have it installed."
As for Russell Irwin, the 91-year-old veteran in Orangeville, he is ready to have his power switched off as threatened by Hydro One but he is not ready to stop fighting, according to his daughter, Randie.
"Dad is an amazing guy and he wants people to know that this isn't about money: It's about choice.
"He fought fires for 35 years and he's tough and I truly admire him for taking on Hydro One."
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2013/09/20130917-204715.html
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