Comments on: Another “Metered Service” Ripoff: Pacific Gas & Electric’s ‘Smart Meters’ Are ‘Cunning Little Thieves,’ Critics Allege

By: JMH

JMH — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:04:27 +0000

What I don’t know, however, is how many other times a rate adjustment was requested (and approved) over the last 10 years – or for that matter what SDG&E’s generation, transmission, and distribution costs actually are. $0.13/kWh seems rather low for CA.

It’s complicated stuff, which is why the California Public Utilities Commission is supposed to help sort it out.

If you’re interested in some examples of how they do the bill calculation…look here: http://www.sdge.com/customer/rates/baselineTierExamples.shtml

By: JMH

JMH — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:30:43 +0000

I just watched the SDG&E video segment – then I went to the SDG&E web site to see if I could make sense of it. My opinion is that it’s a piece of irresponsible (or perhaps just poor) journalism.

Say you’re running a gas station and gasoline currently costs you $2.70/gallon to purchase (including taxes). You add a few cents to your costs to cover your lease, employees, etc. and (hopefully) make a little profit. So perhaps you end up selling it for $2.80/gallon.

Now imagine the government steps in and writes law saying you can charge your customers no more than $2.75 for the first 10 gallons of gasoline they wish purchase.

OK, not that big of a deal right now – perhaps you charge customers a little more for gallons 11-20, but what happens as the price of oil rises over the next 10 years? Say gasoline costs you $3.50/gallon to purchase in 2015. What about $4.50/gallon?

If you’re only selling gasoline, you have no other choice but to keep raising the price on gallons 11 and over, because the government is forcing you to sell those first 10 gallons at a loss. So perhaps you have to charge $5.50 for gallons 11, 12, 13, etc. – just to break even.

Is this the best way to have to run your business? Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for conserving energy. I own an energy efficiency business. Charging higher rates to customers that use more encourages conservation and is good environmental policy.

SDG&E isn’t trying to eliminate the tiered pricing system – they’re just asking for permission to sell the first 10 gallons at a little bit less of a loss, because the economics of maintaining this artificially low price have drifted so far out of whack.

It’s a 5% adjustment. How many things can you think of that only cost 5% more than they did 10 years ago? I can’t come up with very many.

By: Killing the Golden Goose « The Michigan Telephone blog

Killing the Golden Goose « The Michigan Telephone blog — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:46:41 +0000

[...] totally unnecessary and it leaves customers open to possible fraud by the provider (this is sometimes even a problem with utilities where you can physically see the meter, so how much more of a problem will it be when the meter exists only in software, and customers [...]

By: TM

TM — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:15:00 +0000

If anyone thinks that these so-called “Smart Meters” are for anything other than increasing profits is a fool. The meter currently on the house is working just fine. The investment was made and recouped long ago. The electric company is not going to spend hundreds of dollars per living unit (house, apartment, condo or otherwise) to buy and install these meters so you and I can pay less money.

They can sit back and continue to collect on what’s out there right now or they can put in new meters and charge more money under the cloak of “it’s green” or “it’ll only charge you for what you use”.

Electric, water and sewer should be required to be non-profit. These are the most basic of utilities.

By: Uncle Ken

Uncle Ken — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:27:34 +0000

Very clever that there are no little dials on those meters to prove anything.
Smart meters MUST be required to have both.

By: jr

jr — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:23:38 +0000

These meters are like a shot clock in an NBA game that only helps one team

By: wiating and watching

wiating and watching — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:24:20 +0000

Duke Energy does the same thing….now with the RF meters they just read them form the road, and never even check to see if the things are working, but heck water meters are never read anyway, they just charge you what they feel like around here, without knowing how much you really use. The sad thing is TV companies DO correctly one thing, monitor pay-per-view/on-demand things so know what to charge you for, but anything else metered seems like is just a guess with no actual number that I have ever seen including for a while my Verizon phone bill. But paying my $1 per month I get the privilege of having it itemized to prove where they are messing up.

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:34:40 +0000

I just watched the last video about SDG&E. All I can think of is…what? How does that make sense? How is it the “lower tier” user’s problem is someone else is using more energy than they are? And why does the company care if it’s “fair”? Seems fair to me to pay for what you’re using. I hope that idea gets shot down. It just seems very strange to me, especially since it is a monopoly. Those customers have no choice but to stay with SDG&E. If it were me, I’d just start leaving lights on to bring my electricity usage up so I wouldn’t start getting charged more for using the same amount of electricity.

As far as those Smart Meters go…they’d better stay out of Ohio. I don’t trust my data to be “transmitted” over radio waves when I have no recourse when it’s obviously wrong. You’re right, this is along the same lines as Internet Providers. They say their meter is right, so even when you know for a fact that it’s not right, you have no recourse. It’s completely unfair.

By: Shell

Shell — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:56:05 +0000

Here in MI, Consumers Energy wanted federal dollars to begin the installation of these “smart” meters from the “stimulus” funds. They didn’t get it but are insisting that these meters will do what PG&E is claiming. Once again we’ll hit the cycle of using less but being charged more because profits will be down…unless they can fudge the numbers. Can someone tell me how these meters communicate with the power company? Do they use a landline or does a meter reader need to come out? Unless they’ve got their own system they’re SOL at my house. We’ve never had a landline and cable doesn’t reach.