Smart meter debate
Utility wants opt-out notice from customers Tuesday
In or out? Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has asked customers who want to opt out of the utility’s controversial Smartmeter program to notify the company by Tuesday. That’s three months to the day since California regulators gave PG&E customers the choice of rejecting the wireless electricity and gas meters, which critics consider a threat to their privacy and health.
May 1 isn’t a firm deadline.
People who later decide that they don’t want the new meters can opt out at any time, for any reason. The deadline exists largely so PG&E, based in San Francisco, will know how many refurbished analog meters it will need to buy and where it will need to install them. While some of the people who choose to opt out still have their
old analog meters, others have already received Smartmeters that they don’t want.
Opting out isn’t free. Under rules established by the California Public Utilities Commission in February, most PG&E customers who stick with analog meters will pay $75 up front, plus a $10 monthly fee.
Few requests
So far, 19,500 customers have opted out, far below the 145,000 to 150,000 that PG&E predicted. It’s also just a fraction of the 92,000 customers who placed themselves on a list to delay having the meters installed. The company has tried reaching those people with phone calls and certified mail, but most haven’t responded.
“As you can imagine, the numbers are changing pretty much every day,” said Helen Burt, PG&E’S chief customer officer. “Whether we’ll see a strong number opt out prior to May 1, I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised, but up til now, it’s been pretty steady.”
To Smartmeter opponents, the opt-out fees smack of extortion. Why pay extra, they argue, to turn down a device they never asked for and don’t trust? Some have encouraged their fellow PG&E customers to opt out but refuse to pay the extra charges, which will appear on their monthly bills.
One website, Fight the Fees!, contains photo after photo of people posing with their analog meters and hoisting signs that read “Why pay to opt OUT?? We never opted IN!” A link leads to an online petition protesting the fees, and 2,293 people have signed.
“I’ve just been upset about having it thrust upon me as a customer,” said Diane Dutton of Watsonville, who set up the site in March. “I really want the powers that be to know that as consumers, I don’t think we’ve ever been given a choice.”
Like most Smartmeter opponents, she also considers the radiation from cell phones, laptop computers and other wireless devices to be dangerous — a fiercely debated idea that most of the medical establishment rejects but some researchers embrace.
Extra charges
And yet, Dutton and her husband, Bob, have not decided whether to opt out. She’s hesitant to boycott the opt-out fees altogether. And her family has two electricity meters — one for their home, one for their water well. Paying the extra charges on both would add up.
“If it was free, it would have been a no-brainer,” said Dutton. “I would have said, ‘Heck, I don’t want one.’ ”
PG&E warns that people who opt out but don’t pay the fees will be treated like any other customers who owe the company money — they could see their power shut off if they don’t eventually pay up.
“It is a part of what they owe, and at some time in the future, it’ll be an unpaid bill that’ll be subject to collection and possibly subject to cut off,” Burt said, adding, “That is absolutely the last thing we want to do.”
PG&E and other utilities consider advanced meters to be essential building blocks of the “smart grid” — an electricity transmission and distribution system more flexible and resilient than the one in use today. The digital SmartMeters deployed by PG&E record energy use in great detail and transmit data to the utility several times a day via a wireless network.
Opposition to the meters has surfaced elsewhere, but not to the degree seen in California, particularly within PG&E’S territory. Still, the California Public Utilities Commission approved meter opt-out rules this month for Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., mirroring PG&E’S.
PG&E, the state’s largest utility, has installed 9 million Smartmeters out of a planned 10 million.
As of last week, 1,540 PG&E customers in San Francisco had chosen to opt out. In Marin County, 1,630 customers rejected the meters, while in Santa Cruz County, 2,430 customers made the same choice.