CPUC says PG&E should allow SmartMeter opt-out
[Yay for the CPUC! This is clearly the right answer! - Barry]
CPUC says PG&E should allow SmartMeter opt-out
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 11:47 a.m.
SAN FRANCISCO — California regulators will ask Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to set up a process so its customers can opt out of SmartMeters if they have concerns about the devices' potential health effects.
California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey says he will ask the utility to develop the proposal over the next two weeks.
Peevey's announcement came before dozens of people and advocacy groups testified at Thursday's commission meeting that exposure to radio frequencies and radiation from the wireless electricity and gas meters was harming people's health.
PG&E maintains that the meters are safe. Other PUC commissioners have said they want to see more research on whether the electronic meter-reading system can impact health.
Peevey says he believes PG&E should allow customers to opt out for a "reasonable cost".
Re: CPUC says PG&E should allow SmartMeter opt-out
Yes, that would be good news. I am cynical as this does not seem to follow the normal actions of the CPUC. But, say it does, would that mean that those of us who were forced to accept these in the past year would be able to opt out?
Re: CPUC says PG&E should allow SmartMeter opt-out
Yes, the opt.-out option opportunity is the right thing. But it's not as if the people have been unusually empowered. Those who opt. out will have to pay for their choice but it's better than no-choice at all. A revenue option for PG&E. Progress is good.
Hopefully, more will come of this from an unexpected direction relating to health and beliefs where we begin to acknowledge peoples beliefs
instead of trying to prove them wrong. Billions of dollars of pharma-research has proved the placebo effect is real while the biological mechanisms are poorly understood. No sane person can argue its reality with absence of scientific proof. e.g. "We can't prove it's there so it isn't." or "You can't have that because it doesn't work"
"Psycho-somatic" is also very real in the same way and does not disparage or diminish the individual for being human. To force people to undergo necessary damaging experiences for want of a so-called scientific explanation is wrong. Each person is the most qualified to determine what is good or bad for him.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
[Yay for the CPUC! This is clearly the right answer! - Barry]
CPUC says PG&E should allow SmartMeter opt-out
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 11:47 a.m.
SAN FRANCISCO — California regulators will ask Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to set up a process so its customers can opt out of SmartMeters if they have concerns about the devices' potential health effects.
California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey says he will ask the utility to develop the proposal over the next two weeks.
Peevey's announcement came before dozens of people and advocacy groups testified at Thursday's commission meeting that exposure to radio frequencies and radiation from the wireless electricity and gas meters was harming people's health.
PG&E maintains that the meters are safe. Other PUC commissioners have said they want to see more research on whether the electronic meter-reading system can impact health.
Peevey says he believes PG&E should allow customers to opt out for a "reasonable cost".
Re: CPUC says PG&E should allow SmartMeter opt-out
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by John b:
Yes, the opt.-out option opportunity is the right thing. But it's not as if the people have been unusually empowered. Those who opt. out will have to pay for their choice but it's better than no-choice at all. A revenue option for PG&E. Progress is good.
Hopefully, more will come of this from an unexpected direction relating to health and beliefs where we begin to acknowledge peoples beliefs
instead of trying to prove them wrong. Billions of dollars of pharma-research has proved the placebo effect is real while the biological mechanisms are poorly understood. No sane person can argue its reality with absence of scientific proof. e.g. "We can't prove it's there so it isn't." or "You can't have that because it doesn't work"
"Psycho-somatic" is also very real in the same way and does not disparage or diminish the individual for being human. To force people to undergo necessary damaging experiences for want of a so-called scientific explanation is wrong. Each person is the most qualified to determine what is good or bad for him.
Other's may be surprised, but I agree with you and with the CPUC decision. I was never against an opt out, I was against spending scarce resources on very low probability problems whilst we ignore real high probability problems.
Re: CPUC says PG&E should allow SmartMeter opt-out
The fact that P G & E has been ordered by the CPUC to provide an opt-out program for SmartMeters is a very good prospect. However, it remains to be seen how P G & E will handle the opt-out option for consumers who already have SmartMeters. That's 7.5 million ratepayers in California.
I must add that it galls me to know that consumers were stuck with the bill for installing SmartMeters in the first place and will have to pay P G & E a fee to have them removed. God forbid the company should have to take a charge to pay for their aggressive stance on installation of the meters.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
[Yay for the CPUC! This is clearly the right answer! - Barry]
CPUC says PG&E should allow SmartMeter opt-out
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 11:47 a.m.
SAN FRANCISCO — California regulators will ask Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to set up a process so its customers can opt out of SmartMeters if they have concerns about the devices' potential health effects.
California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey says he will ask the utility to develop the proposal over the next two weeks.
Peevey's announcement came before dozens of people and advocacy groups testified at Thursday's commission meeting that exposure to radio frequencies and radiation from the wireless electricity and gas meters was harming people's health.
PG&E maintains that the meters are safe. Other PUC commissioners have said they want to see more research on whether the electronic meter-reading system can impact health.
Peevey says he believes PG&E should allow customers to opt out for a "reasonable cost".
Re: CPUC says PG&E should allow SmartMeter opt-out
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by BobHeisler:
The fact that P G & E has been ordered by the CPUC to provide an opt-out program for SmartMeters is a very good prospect. However, it remains to be seen how P G & E will handle the opt-out option for consumers who already have SmartMeters. That's 7.5 million ratepayers in California.
I must add that it galls me to know that consumers were stuck with the bill for installing SmartMeters in the first place and will have to pay P G & E a fee to have them removed. God forbid the company should have to take a charge to pay for their aggressive stance on installation of the meters.
Paying a fee to have a smartmeter removed does not seem fair at all! OTOH, it does seem fair to me to asses a small monthly fee ($3?) to customers who opt-out of smartmeters to cover the costs of manually reading the meter rather then being able to read it automatically from the smartmeter. And note that the cost to PG&E to send someone out does not cover the costs to society in terms of traffic, energy use and pollution.
Re: CPUC says PG&E should allow SmartMeter opt-out
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
Paying a fee to have a smartmeter removed does not seem fair at all! OTOH, it does seem fair to me to asses a small monthly fee ($3?) to customers who opt-out of smartmeters to cover the costs of manually reading the meter rather then being able to read it automatically from the smartmeter. And note that the cost to PG&E to send someone out does not cover the costs to society in terms of traffic, energy use and pollution.
A smart meter was installed at my house last summer under verbal protest. I was given to believe that one of the virtues of the SM was so that the utility would no longer have to read the meters each month. I do not know how long this has been going on (I don't wait for them to show up), but the last two months, a PGE truck has hauled by and read the meter with their little scope. How does that save them the money they claim?
Re: CPUC says PG&E should allow SmartMeter opt-out
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
Paying a fee to have a smartmeter removed does not seem fair at all! OTOH, it does seem fair to me to asses a small monthly fee ($3?) to customers who opt-out of smartmeters to cover the costs of manually reading the meter rather then being able to read it automatically from the smartmeter. And note that the cost to PG&E to send someone out does not cover the costs to society in terms of traffic, energy use and pollution.
A small monthly fee is just a foot-in-the-door to a big fat one justified later with specious excuses like the decommissioning of Diablo Canyon (coming up sooner than later). All these decades with an analog meter, and now they wanna add a surcharge to continue reading as they've always done without one? One way to minimize the bemoaned burden of paying meter readers would be to expand the practice already used for remote rural customers behind locked gates. Those meters get read only once or twice a year, and the months in between are averaged based on previous bills. Amazing frugality that actually works!
To be polite, your sense of fairness is puzzling. The costs of retaining the meter readers is a pittance compared to the cost of the Schmart meters themselves. How many years of meter reader wages would the recent multimillion dollar attempted heist/failed campaign for Prop 40 have paid for? Were we as ratepayers consulted for approving that expense? Were the stockholders? How many years of meter reader wages could be had for what we the ratepayers paid for just the remaining Schmartmeters that nobody wants, not to mention the ones already installed that we never had a choice about? Did the PUC suffer Carpal Tunnel Syndrome as they rubber stamped the rate increase requests to pay for them?
As for the hidden social & environmental costs, I have never understood why the job couldn't be accomplished perfectly well with bicycles. Remember when the kids used to deliver newspapers on bicycles, back when fuel cost a quarter per gallon? And their load was a lot heavier than a mere pen and clipboard. (Now the same exact job is done with SUVs, with today's blood-for-oil fuel prices--are we getting schmarter yet?) Even macho cops ride bicycles now. To be "fair", we should account for what the environment will pay additionally for the installation and maintenance of a vast new line of infrastructure required for the Schmart Grid.
I bicycle around affluent neighborhoods in Santa Rosa, and the place is peppered with Refuse Schmart Meter signs. Every week now there is a new municipality or county formally declaring its opposition to Schmart Meters.
https://stopsmartmeters.org/2011/03/...-smart-meters/
Even retro Lake County has climbed on the bus, leaving our own Sonoma County in the lurch. The movement is growing undeniably. I'm having a hard time believing such a broad spectrum of people can all be deluded.
The bottom line in this issue is choice. The conclusion of the editorial in the Chronicle is spot on: rightfully the Schmart Meter program should have been implemented as an opt-in, not an opt-out. That's what I would call fair--or should I use the "d" word? The utility in concert with the PUC wrongfully usurped our choice, and now that they've been caught, they want to hold it out for ransom. They shouldn't be rewarded by selling it back to us.
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SmartMeters should be customers' choice
Monday, March 14, 2011
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Bowing to public pressure and common sense, California's top utility regulator finally told Pacific Gas & Electric Co. that it must offer customers an opportunity to opt out of receiving the company's wireless SmartMeters. The announcement comes after PG&E has replaced 74 percent of its analog electrical meters and 83 percent of its gas meters.
Better late than never.
Opponents of SmartMeters have found all kinds of reasons to dislike them. Some believe that the wireless meters, which emit radiation, are responsible for present or future health problems. Some are convinced that their bills inexplicably shot up after PG&E installed a SmartMeter. Some were concerned about their privacy, since the meters can reveal when people aren't home.
Few if any of PG&E's customers appreciated the fact that they had no choice but to accept these new meters.
PG&E is a monopoly in most of Northern California, and it refused to allow customers to say no to the new meters. It was a classic example of limited consumer choice - and the California Public Utilities Commission should have stepped in long ago.
Now PG&E has two weeks to propose a solution that allows customers to opt out. Fine - there are options.
Ideally, the company would allow customers to keep their old meters. Digital meters that transmit data over wires or fiber-optic cables should also be an option - they were for PG&E, when it was choosing which new technology to install.
Either way, PG&E shouldn't use this as an excuse to gouge customers who choose to opt out. The PUC simply said that the opt-out options must have a "reasonable" cost to the customer. But what's a "reasonable" cost, and why should the customer have to pay for it? How would it work with customers who already have SmartMeters installed but don't want them?
There are still lots of questions out there, and we look forward to hearing answers. But this is a long-overdue step in the right direction. Customer choice should have been an opt-in all along.
This article appeared on page A - 11 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Read more: https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...#ixzz1GutRmGrI
Re: CPUC says PG&E should allow SmartMeter opt-out
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Runningbare:
A small monthly fee is just a foot-in-the-door to a big fat one justified later ... Customer choice should have been an opt-in all along.
Good Post!
See my reply here.
Re: CPUC says PG&E should allow SmartMeter opt-out
You can be sure that soon a new announcement will appear in your bill that PG&E has filed an application for a certain gross amount of money to "RECOVER" the losses they have 'suffered' over the Smart Phone brouhaha.
Re: CPUC says PG&E should allow SmartMeter opt-out
Re: CPUC says PG&E should allow SmartMeter opt-out
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by fafner:
Yes, that would be good news. I am cynical as this does not seem to follow the normal actions of the CPUC. But, say it does, would that mean that those of us who were forced to accept these in the past year would be able to opt out?
Yes, everyone can opt out whether they have a smart meter now or not.
To do so call 1-866-743-0263 available 24/7 by May 1st, 2012.
p.s If you are a supporting member of Waccobb and you want to broadcast a public service announcement in your signature like mine, please contact me by mousing over my name ubaru under my photo and then clicking on 'send email.'
