dpb wrote:

Industry experts and consumer advocates have said exactly the same
thing.

Cite(s)?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124050416142448555.html

Note that federal stimulus grants are mentioned (as helping to bankrole
these smartmeter deployments). Note also there is mention of a smart
gas-meter (what a crock that is!). The content of the above link is
reproduced below for your reading pleasure.

That link came from he

http://sites.google.com/site/nocellt...eter-concerns/
going-deep-understanding-the-big-picture-and-real-costs-and-concerns

I highly suggest you have a look at that page and follow some of it's
links.


====================
April 27, 2009
Smart Meter, Dumb Idea?

Not everyone thinks smart meters are such a smart use of money.

Utilities are spending billions of dollars outfitting homes and
businesses with the devices, which wirelessly send information about
electricity use to utility billing departments and could help consumers
control energy use.
The Journal Report

Proponents of smart meters say that when these meters are teamed up with
an in-home display that shows current energy usage, as well as a
communicating thermostat and software that harvest and analyze that
information, consumers can see how much consumption drives cost -- and
will consume less as a result.

Such knowledge, however, doesn't come cheap. Meters are expensive, often
costing $250 to $500 each when all the bells and whistles are included,
such as the expense of installing new utility billing systems. And
utilities typically pass these costs directly on to consumers.
CenterPoint Energy Inc. in Houston, for instance, recently began
charging its customers an extra $3.24 a month for smart meters, sparking
howls of protest since the charges will continue for a decade and
eventually approach $1 billion.

Consumer advocates fear the costs could be greater than the savings for
many households. They also worry that the meters will make it easier for
utilities to terminate service -- so easy that they will disconnect
power for small arrearages that wouldn't have caused a termination in
the past.

What's more, the cost to consumers could go beyond the extra charges
imposed by utilities. That's because consumers usually are left to their
own devices (literally) when it comes to adding the in-home displays and
home-area networks that use data from the meters to control appliances
and other pieces of equipment.

"What we're most concerned about is that consumers realize real benefits
from the meters" from the start, says Michelle Furmanski, general
counsel for the Texas House Committee on State Affairs, which is
considering legislation that could establish more protections against
disconnections.

Ms. Furmanski says that her committee is also looking into the lack of
information on meter deployments that is available to the public. The
utilities have claimed "trade secret" protections for important
financial details about their meter programs, including contract terms
with vendors. Such secrecy makes it impossible for consumers to analyze
why costs for what appear to be similar services vary so much among
utilities.

Texas law requires rapid smart-meter deployments, leaving consumer
advocates little room to negotiate. But Don Ballard, the Texas consumer
counsel, was able to negotiate an agreement with utilities in which
CenterPoint and Oncor Electric Delivery, a unit of closely held Energy
Future Holdings Corp., agreed to spend $20.6 million on consumer
education and $17.5 million to purchase display units for low-income
families.

Legislation is also pending in the state legislature that would force
utilities to seek federal stimulus funds to partly pay for their meter
programs and could limit the ability to levy surcharges. Instead,
utilities would be required to undergo full rate reviews so that
offsetting savings might be identified as a way to minimize the impact
on bills.

Jack Oliphint, a retiree who lives 20 miles north of Houston in Spring,
Texas, thinks the $444 he will pay CenterPoint in coming years for a
smart meter is too much, considering what he sees as rather elusive
benefits. "There's no mystery about how you save energy," says the
71-year-old retired furniture salesman. "You turn down the air
conditioner and shut off some lights. I don't need an expensive meter to
do that."

In other states, such concerns have led to the scaling back of
smart-meter deployments.

Two years ago, Connecticut Light & Power Co. proposed to provide smart
meters for all of its 1.2 million customers. "But then we heard from the
Connecticut attorney general asking us, why don't you walk before you
run?" says Mitch Gross, a spokesman for the utility. "He was concerned
about the cost."

As a result, the utility will do a pilot program this summer to test
customer acceptance of smart meters and variable pricing. Some 3,000
customers have volunteered, and the utility intends to see whether
people cut energy use during times that prices rise. Some consumers will
have "energy orbs" in their homes that change color, a visible
indication of how prices are changing, as a way to stimulate behavior
changes.

Instead of the estimated $255 million cost of a full meter deployment,
the test will run $13 million.

Concerns have arisen in California, too, where the state's three big
investor-owned utilities are expected to spend at least $4.3 billion for
millions of new meters by 2012. Utilities already are looking at
variable-pricing programs designed to discourage heavy use of
electricity during peak periods like hot summer days. The meters, they
hope, will make variable pricing more effective by giving people clear
incentives to decrease energy use when wholesale energy prices are
highest.

But consumer advocates in California also complain about the cost.
"There are cheaper ways to meet the goal of reducing energy use," says
Marcel Hawiger, an attorney for The Utility Reform Network, or TURN, in
San Francisco, a consumer advocacy organization.

For instance, Mr. Hawiger favors expanding existing air
conditioner-cycling programs, where utilities have the ability to
control air conditioners so they take turns coming on and off, reducing
the drag on the electric system. He says the air-conditioner controllers
can provide much of the benefit at a fraction the cost of installing
millions of smart meters. These programs control temperature settings
and compressors to reduce overall energy use.

PG&E Corp., a San Francisco utility, estimated the cost of its meter
program at $1.74 billion in July 2006, but recently got permission to
spend an additional $467 million, pushing the cost to $2.2 billion for
5.4 million electric meters. It has installed 557,000 meters so far with
the capability of letting consumers go online and read energy data. So
far, however, only 12,000 consumers have taken advantage of it. PG&E
says it hasn't yet marketed the program and it hasn't activated the
home-area-network capability, which will allow people to take
information and put it to work by setting up networks to control
appliances, furnaces, air conditioners and other devices.

PG&E has 124,000 customers enrolled in an air-conditioning-cycling
program and hopes to raise that number to 400,000 customers by the
summer of 2011, but that will add $178 million in program expense. Each
thermostat costs about $300.

It sees the two programs as complementary since the air-conditioning
program reduces peak use but it requires meters to measure and time-date
the reductions. Without both devices, air-conditioning use might drop,
but a utility wouldn't know whether it happened in a peak pricing period
or not. Smart meters "allow us to quantify peak reductions due to smart
AC devices," says utility spokesman Paul Moreno, adding that both
programs were "well examined" by the state Public Utilities Commission.

PG&E intends to educate customers about equipment that can be installed
to form home networks, too, but won't sell the products or support the
devices for at least a year or two. Mr. Hawiger says this means that
there will be millions of smart meters bolted to homes but full
functionality won't happen anytime soon, reducing the bang for the buck.

Southern California Gas Co. now is trying to get $1 billion for smart
gas meters. TURN says the expenditure would be a waste of money because
natural-gas pricing isn't subject to the volatility of electricity
pricing, since gas can be stored but electricity can't. TURN is asking
regulators at the Public Utilities Commission to turn down the request
for funds.

The gas company says savings from reduced labor (1,000 meter-reader jobs
would be eliminated) and transportation costs, among other things, would
cover 80% of the estimated capital cost by 2015. Meter costs would push
up monthly gas-service rates for residential customers by $2.50 a month,
or 3%, in the initial years, but would be followed by reductions after
2017, once capital costs were recovered.

"There won't be rate shock," says Anne Shen Smith, senior vice president
of customer service for Southern California Gas Co., a unit of Sempra
Energy, San Diego.

Meanwhile, Pepco Holdings Inc. announced last month that it will buy
more than 430,000 electric and gas meters for one utility unit, Delmarva
Power, in what could be the first leg of a two million-meter rollout by
2013 for utilities it owns in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and the
District of Columbia. The Delaware portion will cost about $100 million,
or $235 per metered location, according to the company.

Pepco is starting with Delaware because "we offered more regulatory
receptivity than other states," says Michael Sheehy, deputy director of
the Division of the Public Advocate for the state. "The others were less
convinced of the benefits."

Pepco says it hopes regulators in all states will want the meters once
they see how useful they are.
================