Eye-Popping Electric Bills Spark Smart Meter Investigations in Texas, California
source: http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100402/eye-popping-electric-bills-spark-smart-meter-investiga...
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You never get a second chance to make a first impression. It’s an old lesson that smart meter companies and utilities are learning the hard way as some of the country’s first smart grid pilots get underway.
Smart meters, unlike traditional meters, analyze home energy use for time-of-day pricing and send the data to customers and utilities to help them better manage their energy use and supply. While that knowledge can help customers save money, the technology is under fire in California and Texas, where lawsuits and scores of complaints are accusing utilities of using the new meters to inflate their customers’ bills.
The meters allow utilities to see if customers are using energy during peak-load times and charge them accordingly under specified plans. That means careful customers can save money by opting to use their high-energy appliances, such as dishwashers and clothes dryers, during off-peak times.
But with consumer education lagging behind smart grid rollouts, thousands of customers haven't taken advantage of the information and instead have been left thinking that their utility is just price gouging in the name of energy efficiency. Some think it’s a scam cooked up by the utilities; others assume the meters are inaccurate.
The utilities claim that bill increases can be explained by a number of factors, namely increased energy use, energy use during peak-load periods and a colder winter this year. After all, they say, smart meters have been deployed by the millions throughout the world, with few complaints from customers, so clearly the technology is not the problem.
Customers aren’t buying it. ...
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100402/eye-popping-electric-bills-spark-smart-met...
Smart meters, unlike traditional meters, analyze home energy use for time-of-day pricing and send the data to customers and utilities to help them better manage their energy use and supply. While that knowledge can help customers save money, the technology is under fire in California and Texas, where lawsuits and scores of complaints are accusing utilities of using the new meters to inflate their customers’ bills.
The meters allow utilities to see if customers are using energy during peak-load times and charge them accordingly under specified plans. That means careful customers can save money by opting to use their high-energy appliances, such as dishwashers and clothes dryers, during off-peak times.
But with consumer education lagging behind smart grid rollouts, thousands of customers haven't taken advantage of the information and instead have been left thinking that their utility is just price gouging in the name of energy efficiency. Some think it’s a scam cooked up by the utilities; others assume the meters are inaccurate.
The utilities claim that bill increases can be explained by a number of factors, namely increased energy use, energy use during peak-load periods and a colder winter this year. After all, they say, smart meters have been deployed by the millions throughout the world, with few complaints from customers, so clearly the technology is not the problem.
Customers aren’t buying it. ...
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100402/eye-popping-electric-bills-spark-smart-met...
