FPL: Smart meter opt-out fees fall short

Firm: Fees charged to customers using old meters do not cover costs of operating different systems.

JUNO BEACH — Florida Power & Light Co. customers who don’t want a wireless smart meter have to pay extra fees, but FPL says those fees aren’t covering the costs of operating different systems for the 6,138 customers who chose to keep their old meters.

Those customers have cost the company more than $5.2 million in capital and operations and maintenance costs through 2016, according to FPL’s latest smart meter progress report filed with the Florida Public Service Commission.

Yet, that minority has generated only $3.26 million in meter-related fees, resulting in a deficit. But FPL said in the filing it is not requesting an increase in the $89 initial fee and $13 monthly fee those customers are charged.

J u n o B e a c h - b a s e d F P L h a s installed more than 4.9 million smart meters to residential, small business and commercial and industrial customers since the ini- tiative began in 2009.

Of course, to put that in perspective, the smart meter installations cost roughly $800 million, including a $200 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. FPL has stated smart meters saved it more than $30 million in operational costs in 2014 and $46 million in 2015. The company has fewer than 1,000 installations to complete to commercial and industrial customers this year.

FPL did not respond to multiple requests over the last few days for an explanation of how and why the nonstandard meter program has cost more than $5 million.

Smart meters track electricity consumption digitally, then use a secure radio frequency band to communicate directly with FPL through intelligent devices installed on the electrical grid.

Customers who chose to keep their old meters have said they wanted noncommunicating digital meters because of privacy concerns about data transmissions. Others have stated that smart meters’ radio-frequency emissions cause them to have headaches, dizziness and other symptoms.

Smart meter opponents fought against the fees, and made their case during a 2014 PSC hearing, but ultimately lost.

On its website, FPL states the opt-out fees cover the costs to:

■ Set up and administer the nonstandard meter option for each customer.

■ Make changes to its outage management and restoration systems to address outage and restoration issues that need to be manually resolved.

■ Install a nonstandard meter, if necessary.

■ Modify the billing system and maintain the systems and processes needed to read the meter manually every month.

FPL says the benefits of smart meters include:

■ Access to an energy dashboard to view energy use of the hour, day and month.

■ Remote meter reading that doesn’t require a person to read the meter.

■ Hourly usage data to resolve billing questions more efficiently.

■ Faster connection and recon- nection of electricity and convenience when opening, closing or restoring accounts, eliminating the need for most on-site visits.

■ Improved outage detection and faster restoration, often before you call.

■ Field restoration crews can view real-time outage information, and make sure all customers who are part of an outage have been restored before leaving an area, reducing the need for additional truck rolls and field visits.

■ The network provides continuous diagnostic data that FPL uses to pinpoint equipment problems and outages before they occur.