Electric utility customers in the Fort Worth area will soon be getting smart meters. The electric providers are talking up the benefits of smart meters...in the future all of your appliances will have built-in interfaces to your meter and presumably you will be able to thereby program your appliances to run when the cost of electricity is lower in off hours. This presumes of course that the service provider is going to start charging you more during peak hours and less during off hours, which is quite likely the way of the future. It also presumes you want to go buy all new high dollar appliances that have these built in features. The electric company has a peak load problem, in that they have to build capacity to meet their peak load...like 5 PM on midsummer weekdays when everyone gets home and turns things on. A utility with a peak load problem must either increase their generating capacity (and we're still paying for Commanche Peak Nuke Plant which was going to solve our energy problems for our lifetime, but that's a whole different issue), or they have to find ways to reduce their peak loads. They know they can reduce their peak load by getting people to use electricity at times when they have plenty of generating capacity....so they will charge more at peak times and less at non-peak times. That's why at some point in your future you may find yourself setting your alarm clock for 3 AM so you can get up and run a load of laundry. In the name of preserving non-renewable resources, I think this is an ok plan as long as they don't do the usual trick of incorporating a hidden across the board rate hike into the numbers. But if we change our habits to save them the cost of building another generating plant, they need to do right by us.
Now....about smart meters...their traveling road show (really slick semi trailers that turn into a fancy walk thru display where they sell you on the benefits of smart meters) does not tell you up front that these smart meters are going to cost you 4-5 bucks a month on every bill. They already got that approved by the public untilities comission, but you won't know that unless you read the fine print.
So here's my beef. They are going to put meter readers out of work, thereby saving themselves a lot of money. They are going to add to the unemployed. The wages they save should more than pay for their smart meters but NO...they want US to pay for their smart meters so they can put their meter readers out of work and then start charging us more for electricity at the times we have demonstrated that we would prefer to use it. In short they are solving several problems for themselves, making themselves more money, and handing us the bill for it all. Of course to get ANY benefit from a smart meter, the customer has to go buy all new appliances that interface with smart meters, and I don't see the electric company helping us buy those..I haven't even seen such an appliance for sale so far...and I guarantee you all new appliances are going to cost us a LOT more than a smart meter is going to cost them.
Somebody needs to bring this up because you just don't hear anything about it and it's almost here. maybe the March on Wall Street - Fort Worth crowd can take this up
I'm all for being more efficient in the use of electricity but when THEY benefit why do WE have to shoulder all the cost?
feel free to pass this around.
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