Some Customers Claim Smart Meters Aren’t Counting Right

Smart meters, which many hope will play a central role in integrating renewable energy into a more transparent and responsive grid, are not being received well by some customers in California.

PG&E has already installed four million meters in households in Northern and Central California. Six million more are slated for installation over the next few years.

But some new meter recipients swear the devices are logging higher electricity use than their bills used to reflect. These customers have protested vocally at hearings around the state, and they and some concerned legislators have convinced the California Public Utilities Commission to bring in an outside auditor to test the meters’ accuracy.

Utilities hope the meters will help them avoid the costs of sending representatives out to read meters or turn power on and off. But the long-term hope is that the devices will enable real-time pricing that will encourage customers to reduce usage during times of peak demand. This could save utilities and their customers money in the future as it will save some of the cost of building additional capacity.

Currently, because of slack overall demand, much of the country is currently seeing surplus power generating capacity. This means, among other things, that there is less of a price differential between peak and off-peak rates.

PG&E has said some of the complaints about higher bills are related to the state’s tier pricing system, in which an incremental increase in consumption can trigger higher rates.

But the outcry has fueled the reservations of some in other parts of the country. Connecticut’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, has convinced regulators to deploy a pilot program rather than pushing forward with aggressive smart meter implementation.

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