By Eileen Chandler and Weber Hertz
In the fall of 2017, the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) ruled that Arizona Public Service (APS) would be allowed to designate smart meters as their “standard meter”, with non-transmitting digital meters (not the analog meters customers already had) becoming the new “non-standard meter” for those who opt out of the smart meter program. This small change in wording allows APS to remove the existing analog meter of opt-out customers and replace it with a non-transmitting digital meter at any time. APS, the largest electricity utility in Arizona, serves 1.2 million customers in 11 counties across the state, mainly in Northern and Central AZ, out of an estimated population of 7.12 million in 2018. But APS is not the only power company making this change: Electric utilities in many other parts of the U.S. are asking for and receiving the same redefinitions of customer agreement terms from their state regulatory agencies. Because I (Eileen) am electrically sensitive, I have been in the APS smart meter opt-out program since its creation at the ACC Opt-Out-Policy Hearing of December, 2014. So I had retained my analog meter even after most people in this area were switched over to smart meters. But, recently (late-summer 2018), I received a letter from APS stating that my analog meter would be replaced within the next few weeks with a non-transmitting digital meter. When I talked to the supervisor of the AMI* opt-out department about the letter, he said my analog meter was scheduled to be replaced shortly, by either a smart meter or a non-transmitting digital meter. Those were my only two choices. The reason he gave for the replacement was that I was using too much electricity to remain on any of the standard rate, non-time-of-use plans. (Maximum allowed usage is 1000 kwh/month, averaged over a year’s time, and I was using an average of about 1100 per month.) In order to be correctly billed on a time-of-use (TOU) plan, I had to have a digital meter that could measure how much electricity I was using at various times of the day*. So that’s what would be installed. He also said that, although I was being forced to change over now, all of the opt-out program participants would eventually have their existing analog meters replaced by digital meters. It was just a matter of time. That is the reason for this article.
*AMI (Advanced metering infrastructure) is defined as “an architecture for automated, two-way communication between a smart utility meter with an IP address and a utility company. The goal of an AMI is to provide utility companies with real-time data about power consumption and allow customers to make informed choices about energy usage based on the price at the time of use.” In other words, an AMI meter is a “smart meter” as opposed to the Itron non-transmitting digital meter provided to customers who opt-out of the AMI program. (See the Resources section below for a link to an article explaining the dangerous health effects of both “smart meters” and “non-transmitting digital meters”.)
Ten days after I received the letter, an APS technician showed up to install the new digital meter. Within a few minutes of his turning it on, I began to experience debilitating symptoms. I had hoped that perhaps I could adapt to the high frequency interference the digital meter was putting on my home power wires. But, instead of adapting, I became more sensitized and my symptoms worsened to the point where, at the end of a week, I could no longer function. I finally thought to experiment with turning off the main breaker to the porcelain trailer where I sleep. That helped tremendously, allowing me to at least sleep normally at night. Since I have no appliances, and use no electricity except for overhead lights, in the trailer, I was able to shut off all circuits and navigate by flashlight at night. But that was not an option for the other buildings where I cook, work during the day, and have my appliances, freezers, refrigerator, hot water tank, and hot water boiler for heat. Those could not be without electricity.
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