Topic: "Smart" electrical meters

[Bob Wessner]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that folks (California??) had 'smart' RF meters installed by their utility companies, and as a result, their total elec costs increased. Can anyone validate this? From what I gathered, they (the utility) have designated certain parts of the day as high use periods and charge a higher kilowatt hr rate during these periods.

I'm asking because our utility, DTE, is installing such RF meter reading in the very near future.

[72 yellow]

Bob,
I read where some Oakland County (I believe) city wants the PSC commission to have a opt out rule added.  If you don't want the meter they can't force you to accept one.  Our water meters are now RF. 

Gary

[Bob Wessner]

I'll look into the opt out. Yup, we have RF reading of our city water meters as well.

[Kevin D]

Bob,
 I'm not schooled on smart meters, I know there is opposition, but DTE does not have time-of-day rates. This might be a step towards TOD, but I think it's more of a "we can do this and it will be better" thought. The smart meter will tell when your power is out - and I hope that is an infrequent occurrence.
I don't believe that opt out provisions will fly past the MPSC.

[72 yellow]

Bob,
 I'm not schooled on smart meters, I know there is opposition, but DTE does not have time-of-day rates. This might be a step towards TOD, but I think it's more of a "we can do this and it will be better" thought. The smart meter will tell when your power is out - and I hope that is an infrequent occurrence.
I don't believe that opt out provisions will fly past the MPSC.

"Smart meter will tell when your power is out" How?  Loss of signal?  I know it's off when the house and my block is dark.  No high tech meter needed.  I wish they would spend the money on upgrading the grid. 

[Bob Wessner]

Hi, Kevin. I really don't have many issues with it. Many seem concerned about RF signaling, or that DTE will just turn off their power, both pretty frivolous or they just don't have some facts. I don't even mind what I think is the ultimate goal. If DTE has to keep investing to meet peak demands, well, their 'investing' is our rate payments. I'm hoping they would need PSC approval to institute variable rates, but I'm just hoping this is all part of a long-term educational process to teach us to consider running the washer and dryer in the early morning or evening in July rather than the middle of the afternoon when it is 95+ degrees. Now if I were DTE,  I would consider displaying something on the website that would "simulate" a variable rate environment so folks could see how they might be affected by say, a 20% increase per KH during peak hours.

As a side note, I can remember when, then Detroit Edison, actually had reduced rates per KH for high energy users, AND provided free light bulb replacements. Boy have things changed. 

[72 yellow]

Hi, Kevin. I really don't have many issues with it. Many seem concerned about RF signaling, or that DTE will just turn off their power, both pretty frivolous or they just don't have some facts. I don't even mind what I think is the ultimate goal. If DTE has to keep investing to meet peak demands, well, their 'investing' is our rate payments. I'm hoping they would need PSC approval to institute variable rates, but I'm just hoping this is all part of a long-term educational process to teach us to consider running the washer and dryer in the early morning or evening in July rather than the middle of the afternoon when it is 95+ degrees. Now if I were DTE,  I would consider displaying something on the website that would "simulate" a variable rate environment so folks could see how they might be affected by say, a 20% increase per KH during peak hours.

As a side note, I can remember when, then Detroit Edison, actually had reduced rates per KH for high energy users, AND provided free light bulb replacements. Boy have things changed. 

I remember the more you use the less you pay too.  And going to the Edison store to exchange bulbs, get the toaster fixed, etc.  A drug store owner filed suit against Edison claiming he could not compete against free bulb exchange.  He won and the practice was stopped.  He went out of business not long after.

[brooze72]

  Don't get me started!  We've had a version of smart meter up here for awhile.  Basically, it turned out to be a method to charge more for the same or less.  The meter monitors your usage vs time of day, different rates for peak, mid & low demand times.  Oh & throw in different times for these periods, depending on season.  Bottom line, if I run all my appliances late at night with minimal CFL bulb usage I might end up paying what I used to, before the SM. 

If the intent was to lower demand during peak periods, it is working, now the cry is usage & billing are down.  Don't know who's saving money, not me 

[Kevin D]

I know it's off when the house and my block is dark.

But DTE might not know unless you call it in. The smart meter will know and will "call in" and will help direct the line crews to the proper location without your phone call.

By rights, TOD rates should make off-hour usage equally cheaper.

And yes, I think that the electricity could be turned off, or limited, for non-payment. Helping to make rates less for those paying their bills.

Sometimes I wonder how much ($$$?) electrical equipment is sitting around waiting for everybody to turn their AC on high.

[Retro Rocket]

Those smart meters suck, they are trying to force them on everyone here, same problems, they charge highest at the times you eat {cook} and shower ans so on, there has been huge opposition to them here and people have been refusing the elec companies access to their properties, avoid them at all costs, just another way to rip you all off.....

[fmctm1sw]

My water meter is like this.  It doesn't do anything (that I know of) other than beam a reading back.  I'll have to look at my electric meter.  Wait until they start using bandwidth meters for the internet...

[Bob Wessner]

[quote author=Kevin D link=topic=103025.msg1152658#msg1152658 date=133
Sometimes I wonder how much ($$$?) electrical equipment is sitting around waiting for everybody to turn their AC on high.
[/quote]

I expect a fair amount. Several years ago we had a real beauty of a summer. We've always had interruptable service on our a/c and it is usually not noticed. A few days that summer it was. DTE broke the deal on interruptions (supposed to be 15 minutes on and 15 off between certain hours). DTE was really struggling to meet demand. Thereafter they built several natural gas sites.. which I suspect sit idle quite a bit of the time.

[lucky]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that folks (California??) had 'smart' RF meters installed by their utility companies, and as a result, their total elec costs increased. Can anyone validate this? From what I gathered, they (the utility) have designated certain parts of the day as high use periods and charge a higher kilowatt hr rate during these periods.

I'm asking because our utility, DTE, is installing such RF meter reading in the very near future.

I live in California and we have a smart meter.
The rates are still the same now but coming this September 2012 there will be certain hours of the day they will charge much more.
My neighbors will be pissed off if I am grinding and welding at night.

Will we have to have the washing machine going during the night too.
And will the increasing water usage hours conflict with the new electric daytime use restrictions? What about all those electric cars charging at night in Arizona when the air conditioners are battling the 90º heat at 9PM at night when it is in the cool part of the day?? Thats going to be interesting.

Seems like we should just drill for water on our own property and get a windmill generator ,solar and everything else too. Then it will take years to pay it all off.

I think people that really conserve should be rewarded.

[72 yellow]

I know it's off when the house and my block is dark.

But DTE might not know unless you call it in. The smart meter will help direct the line crews to the proper location without the phone call.

By rights, TOD rates should make off-hour usage equally cheaper.

And yes, I think that the electricity could be turned off, or limited, for non-payment. Helping to make rates less for those paying their bills.

Sometimes I wonder how much ($$$?) electrical equipment is sitting around waiting for everybody to turn their AC on high.

I wonder how much smarter the meter is than talking to a person.  I should qualify that.  The meter just tells them no power at the location.  When you call it in you can get someone that says you should have power when you don't.  Happened to me.  2nd time they sent some doofus out and told me I didn't see what I saw. (Transformer arcing). Told me not to talk to the line crew.  Line crew showed  up, came up to me , asked what happened.  I told them what happened, they checked, made repairs where I pointed out within 1 1/2 hours we had power restored.  Otherwise they would have to check from another city where the substation is located and work their way back to me.  They told me they would have run that other guy off.  BTW I also have DTE.

[333]

I don't know what capabilities mine have.  I just thought they were replacing either a human meter reader, or post cards that we had to fill out.  But I have RF meters for elec, gas, and water.  Didn't notice much of a change in my bills because of it.  But what has pissed me off is that over the course of two years, I swapped out all but about 10% of my light bulbs for CFLs, and replaced my HVAC, and the result has been that my bills have gone up.

[Retro Rocket]

I think people that really conserve should be rewarded.

I couldn't agree more. You get kicked in the balls every time you do something wrong but get absolutely nothing for doing the right thing, i think that is the main problem with western society.....Plus there's no money in being good, for the law anyway...

[RustyStuff]

Our electric bill efectivly doubled when we got switched over.

$350 a month this winter, used to be $120.......

everyone had this happen. People have complained en mass. It dident do anything,Pacific power says that they "investigated" and nothings wrong with the meters( from there point of view!)

What a racket. We had no option to opt out. pacific power told us touch cookies, If we dident let them switch we wuoldent get juice anymore...

Now they are #$%*ing that they need higher rates!!!

So much for the deal we had with the bastards. Let them damn up the rivers, so we could have cheap power. Now the fishing is decimated and We Dont even get the Cheap power now! They are sending it all down to comifornia.

[dave500]

here they want us to conserve and use less power so we dont make greenhouse gas,so now we use less the cost has gone up because they want to make the same money,,we use less at more cost,#$%*s,i dont care im #$%*ed off.

[demon78]

Ah Brooze my lad remember your dealing with Ontario Hydro, Mother Hydro can do any thing she want's which is why you're paying a debt repayment charge on your bill. The #$%*s!
Bill the demon.

[Terry in Australia]

I don't want a smart meter because I don't want to see meter readers put out of work. It's not so much that I feel sorry for them, it's just that most of them are too dumb to do anything else, and too ugly to become pole dancers, so I worry that I'll have to work harder to make more money so I can pay my inflated "smart" electricity bills and still pay enough tax to keep unemployed meter readers on welfare.

Another problem is that we've had several smart meters explode during installation recently, and smart meters exploding are responsible for a couple of house fires so far. I haven't heard from my insurance company yet, but I hope my insurance premiums aren't going to rise as a result of someone attaching a potential time bomb to the side of my house, without my permission? Hey maybe they can re-hire all of the unemployed meter readers to regularly check smart meters for fire safety? Cheers, Terry.  

[Kevin D]

I got myself one of these gadgets when my electric bill took off. It took me just a little while to find a sick dehumidifier that cost $50 per month to operate. I've had some fun going around the house checking various appliances. Dial down, CFL's... I put a 7w CFL in my yard lamp about 20 years ago replacing the 40w.  The second refrigerator with a $5 frozen turkey in it = $16/month GONE, computer/modem/monitor/speakers/printer = $9/month. My next fridge will be an energy star.

The Kill-a-Watt has a meter, clock, calculator package. Program in the cents per KWH, reset the timer, operate your appliance for a while to find operating cost:
http://p3international.com/products/special/P4400/P4400-CE.html
 
More than you want to know about smart meters:
http://www.dteenergy.com/pdfs/smartMeterWhitePaper.pdf

[Kevin D]

Smart meter opt out will be allowed. 

Hometown Observer 3/15/2012:
http://www.hometownlife.com/article/20120315/NEWS10/203150579/DTE-will-allow-opt-out-smart-meters?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Frontpage

[Bob Wessner]

Interesting, particularly since I just received a 'reply' from the PSC regarding an inquiry I made about any rate changes that might be associated with this. Of course, the 'reply' was nothing more than a boiler plate response form and the only reference to rate changes was "the the PSC has to approve DTE's business practices."  I'm not really interested in opting out actually. If there are any rate changes, I can take solace in the fact that they will help pay your salary Kevin. 

[Duke McDukiedook]

here they want us to conserve and use less power so we dont make greenhouse gas,so now we use less the cost has gone up because they want to make the same money,,we use less at more cost,#$%*s,i dont care im #$%*ed off.

I remember some newspaper article some time ago where the gov. in Downunderland recommended people take showers together to save on power and water. So, how did that turn out down there?

[Retro Rocket]

here they want us to conserve and use less power so we dont make greenhouse gas,so now we use less the cost has gone up because they want to make the same money,,we use less at more cost,#$%*s,i dont care im #$%*ed off.

I remember some newspaper article some time ago where the gov. in Downunderland recommended people take showers together to save on power and water. So, how did that turn out down there?

Been doing that for years.....