Smart meters under fire

It was a hot summer in Bakersfield and Pacific Gas and Electric has raised rates twice in the past 13 months. It is the simple explanation PG&E has for why customers in the Central Valley have seen exorbitant rate increases in recent months. It is not, the company contends, due to smart meters.

But packed town hall meetings in Bakersfield and Fresno, for instance, have caused state senators to demand answers from the utility as to why their constituents are paying so much more for electricity this year than last.

In response to questions by state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, the California Public Utilities Commission is expected today to require PG&E to obtain an independent third-party technical expert to test and validate meter and billing accuracy of smart meters.

PG&E welcomes the inquiry, said spokesman Joe Molica.

The utility started replacing standard meters in parts of the state with new smart meters in 2006.

Smart meters measure gas and electric use like the old meters did, but send the data back to PG&E electronically, eliminating the need for meter readers.

PG&E is installing up to 15,000 smart meters every day and will have all 10 million of its customers on the new technology by spring of 2012.

Some customers in San Mateo County with the new meters say their bills have gone up too, however.

Redwood City resident Phillip St. James sent out an e-mail earlier this week to state lawmakers, city councilmembers and news outlets complaining about his higher bill.

“My bill has gone up precipitously without increased usage,” St. James wrote in the e-mail. “I am frugal and careful about using electricity and almost never use gas. I haven’t bought any new appliances, so my usage has remained relatively constant for over four years at my present residence.”

St. James participates in the utility’s California Alternate Rates for Energy program for lower-income customers and was under the impression his utility bill would go down.

“I’m on the CARE program and my bill has gone up 20 percent,” St. James said.

PG&E it takes these complaints seriously and has been able to repeatedly show that the smart meters are not the cause of higher utility bills, said PG&E spokesman Paul Moreno.

The utility compared its customers’ bills in Fresno with smart meters to those in Tracy without smart meters and found similar increases to their bills across the board, Moreno said.

“The meters are accurate. The readings are consistent with customers’ historic usage,” Moreno said. It is also possible, Moreno said, that some of the older analog meters were running slow, meaning customers may have been paying less than they should.

“Would a customer complain about paying less than they should?” Moreno said.

Mark Toney, the executive director of The Utility Reform Network based in San Francisco, said complaints about smart meters have been coming into TURN’s office faster than the consumer protection group can respond to. He also questioned whether PG&E would allow for its meters to run slow, saying the claim sounded disingenuous to him.

“We think something is profoundly wrong with the advanced metering infrastructure,” Toney said.

It is not just the meters that should be looked at but the entire pathway from the hardware loop back to the customer’s bill, Toney said.

“Everywhere the meters are installed, we get complaints, from Bakersfield, Fresno, Calaveras County and San Mateo County,” Toney said. “We are not electrical engineers, we are consumer protectionists. We just want an explanation.”

TURN compiles complaints from utility consumers, including those in San Mateo County.

San Mateo resident Phillip Marson sent TURN an e-mail asking to be included “as another person who is wondering about these new meters.”

Marson recently had one of the new meters installed.

“I track my energy usage very closely and was quite surprised that my consumption last month was higher than the same period last year. It has been a very warm fall and I have hardly used electricity or gas. The discrepancy in my bill is not a great amount but I remember being surprised when I got the bill,” Marson wrote in an e-mail to TURN.

Smart meters send power consumption data wirelessly to PG&E, eliminating the need for a meter reader. About 900 meter reader positions at the utility will eventually be eliminated.

The data gets posted on a Web site where customers can see their own electricity and gas use readings.

Customers and PG&E can see when most of the energy is burned, whether at peak times when gas and electricity are most expensive or non-peak when energy is cheaper.

Bill Silverfarb can be reached by e-mail: silverfarb@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 106.