The electric bill in January 2011 was $150.23, the usual cost of the monthly bill and typical for this small Laguna Woods home.
One year later, the bill was $514.34.
What could have possibly caused this $364 increase — a leap of 243 percent? A new state of the art Jacuzzi? Millions of holiday lights to rivalDisneyland?
No, Pat Wiseman said. The only change to his parents’ home was a new smart meter from the electric company, Southern California Edison. It had been installed at the end of October.
Smart meters are part of the new Edison SmartConnect grid. They connect to “a secure wireless network” which, SCE says, gives customers greater control to manage their usage — even from a cell phone, many miles from home. Smart meters are also read remotely, so employees don’t have to trek to the house to read the meter. By the end of this year, 5 million smart meters are slated to be installed in Southern California. SCE is almost done installing them in Orange County — but there may soon be a way to opt out (at a price).
It was after his mother’s smart meter was installed that Wiseman started seeing problems. Between Nov. 10 and Dec. 13, the usage for the 1,600square-foot home was 62.4 kilowatts per hour, he said. Between Dec. 13 and Jan. 12, it was 102.1 kilowatts per hour.
Wiseman argues that there’s no reason the consumption should have changed, because his mother’s habits did not. She lives alone, spends most of her time in her bed, and has one 24-hour care person with her. He lays the blame for the astounding increase squarely on the new meter.
Edison's SmartConnect campaign shows a cheerful consumer
When we first spoke to SCE, a spokesman said there is no way of telling if there are accuracy problems without examining the individual usage of the consumer. But the company said it has not had complaints about accuracy. Instead, he said, consumers say the new meters improve their ability to track their usage.
However, since December of 2008, the California Public Utilities Commission has received 946 complaints on SCE’s smart meters, ranging from concern over health dangers to privacy and billing issues, to simply not wanting the smart meter at all.
The health issues people complain about include dizziness, nausea and headaches — symptoms some say are caused by the radio frequency (RF) radiation that the smart meters emit — as well as worries about being exposed to possible carcinogens.
SCE has compared the strength of smart meters’ RF signals to other household devices, and says that a cell phone next to your ear emits a signal that’s tremendously stronger than a smart meter three feet away (the cell phone signal being 4,960 microwatts per-centimeter-squared higher than the smart meter’s, to be exact).
Due to the complaints and various citizen action groups banning together against smart meters, the state Public Utilities Commission will consider an opt-out proposal for consumers at its April 19 meeting.
The proposal was put forward March 15, and lays out the options on how to best institute an opt-out program, as well as the cost. Choosing to opt out will not be free of charge.
The Public Utilities Commission’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates, and the Consumer Power Alliance, are pushing for an analog meter opt-out option, because that’s what Pacific Gas and Electric Co. had to do for its customers in Northern California.
The DRA is dedicated to “obtaining the lowest possible rate for service consistent with reliable and safe service levels,” according to its site. The CPA is a group of concerned citizens and organizations that formed to oppose the transitions to smart grids and smart meters.
SCE argues that it would be better if the opt-out option allowed customers to keep the meter they currently have, or had, prior to the smart meter installations.
The opt-out proposal does not talk about the problems ratepayers had with privacy or health.
According to one proposal, if a customer wants to opt out now, he would have to pay an initial fee of $75, and after that a monthly fee of $10. SCE estimated in the proposal that 61,000 of its customers would choose the opt out option and they will be filing “updated costs associated with the opt out option in the future.” But at $75 a pop, that initial $75 charge would cost folks $4.6 million, and the ongoing monthly $10 charge would haul in$610,000 a month.
These rates may change after the CPUC meetings conclude.
“The big issue is that rates need to be lowered to compensate for the higher readings you get with smart meters and ‘opt out’ does nothing about this,” Wiseman said. “And yet all of the electricity providers are going to the CPUC requesting higher rates. I think the CPUC is heavily tilted in favor of the electricity providers and hardly anyone at the CPUC is looking out for the interests of consumers. Unless the public is aware and upset, nothing will change.”
The CPUC said that the utility companies it regulates are required to submit rate applications every three years, so requests to change rates are nothing new.
But the possibility of an opt-out program isn’t enough for Maureen Howman of Stop OC Meters.
“People need to be made aware and they need to tell people they have a choice,” Howman said. “They have a choice to keep the original system they have right now or switch. It’s not right constitutionally.”
If you want to weigh in on this issue, you can file a comment with the CPUC at public.advisor@cpuc.ca.gov. We will update you after the April 19 CPUC meeting.
