The Smart Meter Challenge: To Help Conserve Energy
I don't know, maybe you need to live next door to an open
pit coal mine in order to be more understanding of the
deployment of smart meters. If you want to help protect the
environment, save mother earth for the generations, and
reduce carbon in the atmosphere - then stay home, conserve
power, and stop complaining about smart meters. At some
point, a century old delivery system was going to have to be
upgraded. The milkman is a thing of the past, and now, the
meter reader is slowly disappearing.
California practically has the Oregon Trail running in
reverse. The state is bogged down in a growing fight over
the installing of
smart meters. In the State's hot central valley,
residents complained that the smart meters spiked their
utility bills. In San Francisco, a small but vocal group
have been arguing that the antennas are a potential health
threat. People in Bolinas and Berkeley have been seen
holding up signs declaring "ban the smart meters".
Meanwhile, the town of Fairfax and Santa Cruz County are
considering to ban the smart meters all together.
Angry homeowners have accused the meters of gross
inaccuracy, blaming them for monthly bills that almost
doubled. At least 450 PG&E customers have filed formal
complaints with the State Public Utility commission.
California regulators have launch an independent
investigation that will subject the devices to a battery of
lab and field tests.
And it's not just California. In Texas, "hundreds" of
customers in Oncor's service district are complaining that
the smart meters are not accurate and are causing high
energy bills. In Maryland, the Public Services Commission
has denied a proposal by Baltimore Gas & Electric to install
1.36 million smart meters. The National Association of
Regulatory Utility Commissioners supported the finding that
the smart meter program may not be in the best interest of
the customer.
Contributing to inaccurate power bills is one thing, but
there is some evidence of other technical problems. The
AMI-SEC Task Force has been working on developing security
guidelines and best practices for the smart meter
infrastructure. The Task Force is considering the potential
problem of cross-site request forgery. Cross site request
forgery allows a hacker to hijack cookies stored in a user's
browser and obtain access to the users system. In other
words, is a smart meters radio signal secure?
Seemingly lost in all the complaints and angry customers, is
what the smart meter was designed to do. Very simply, it was
designed to bring the delivery system into the 21st century.
There are all kinds of tools, gadgets and services being
developed that will manage a home's carbon footprint,
control energy use and pinpoint energy hogs. The technology
will be in place that will let your cell phone monitor your
home's energy usage while you are on vacation in Brazil.
Pacific Gas & Electric has installed 6.7 million smart
meters since 2007. That means millions of smart meters are
doing just fine.
One PG&E customer reports that a smart meter was installed
at his house several months ago and just last week began to
let him monitor his electric usage on a PG&E website. Being
a bit of a tech geek, he reports that he gets a little
granular by charting his power usage hour-by-hour,
pinpointing power spikes and seeing how lifestyle affects
energy consumption. He learned that 21 days into his billing
cycle he had used $11 worth of electricity and that his
projected total bill will be between $15 and $20. He knows
that his power usage peaks around 6 AM and again at 8 PM and
that he is using slightly fewer kilowatts this year than the
same time last year. He has been able to set up an email
alert that notifies him if his electrical consumption kicks
him into a higher rate tier.
People did not brave the Oregon Trail and displace thousands
of Native Americans just to reach the level of a milkman and
a meter reader. The old mechanical spinning wheel meters
have been in place since the hand cranked telephone. I think
it's high time we let the electric meters show a little
advancement. If you agree with me, send me an email from
your cell phone with your picture attached.
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