dpb wrote:

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

Cite(s)?

==============
Public Citizen: "Energy Investment Forum, Building Green: Consumer
Viewpoints on the Smart Grid," January 20, 2011, by Tyson Slocum,
Director, Public Citizen’s Energy Program:

http://www.citizen.org/documents/Ene...tForumPres.pdf

See page 3, Overview of Problems:

- Mandatory installation of smart meters into homes is premature –
smart meters are being used in profoundly dumb ways

- Optimizing smart meters requires seamless and automatic communication
with “smart” appliances and heating/cooling systems - but working
families (and renters) have little incentive or opportunity to afford
such appliances

- As a result, households are using the $200-$500 meters to respond
to price signals manually – and the tiny loads used by most families
won’t allow them to recover in energy savings the cost of the meter

- Smart meter installations have thus far prioritized utility budget
efficiency – not household budget efficiency.

- Poring through utility dockets, utilities make it clear that the vast
majority of projected savings from smart meters is from laying off
utility workers – and not from consumers’ lowering their energy use
and bills

- Utilities highlight savings from remote disconnection – mainly for
nonpayment. This raises serious consumer safety and health issues.
(cutting off electricial service in the winter)
==============

Something I didn't think about with the smartmeter is the ability to
remotely turn on and off electrical service to a residence without
needing a technical employee to perform the task manually. That goes
hand-in-hand with the elimination of the meter-reader job.

And the ability for a utility to offer (or impose) pre-paid electrical
service.

==============
AARP, National Consumer Law Center, and Public Citizen Comments to:
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Smart Grid RFI:
Addressing Policy and Logistical Challenges, November 1, 2010," written
by David Certner Legislative Counsel and Legislative Policy Director,
AARP Government Relations and Advocacy; Olivia Wein, Staff Attorney,
National Consumer Law Center; Tyson Slocum, Director Public Citizen's
Energy Program:

http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/o...ntsDOE1101.pdf

A recent investigative news report from Texas (where deregulated
electricity commodity vendors can offer service on a pre-paid only
basis) tells of vulnerable pre-payment electricity customers being cut
off without notice. Families with children have had to abandon their
homes. A paraplegic who requires air conditioning to maintain a safe
body temperature lost his electricity on days when the temperature
exceeded 100 degrees.

A heart failure patient who needed power for an oxygen machine was cut
off twice by her pre-payment meter in one summer.

The risks of disconnection by remote control or by automatic action of a
pre-payment meter or service limiter are also shown in the case of a
90-year old Michigan man who froze to death in his own kitchen last
winter. When he was found, there were funds to pay for his bill on the
table. But he had missed a payment and the utility had installed a
service limiter. When the service limiter tripped, the gentleman could
not or did not know how to reset the limiter.

Customers whose utilities are disconnected have died from hypothermia,
from fires set by candles used for lighting in the absence of
electricity, and from other consequences of loss of power. The concern
of consumer advocates over the dangers of involuntary remote controls on
household usage cannot be overstated.
============



=============
Also read Barbara Alexander's July 15, 2010, presentation "SMART
REGULATORY APPROACH FOR SMART GRID INVESTMENTS," for the 2010 National
Energy and Utility Affordability Conference (NEUC):

http://www.energyandutilityconferenc..._Alexander.pdf.
Among her points:

- Almost 50% of residential customers have very low price elasticities
(less than -0.10); half will make very little usage changes

- YET all must pay for program; TURN found that 60% of customers who use
less than 6,000 kWh annually would have to shift more than half their
peak load to see bill savings when costs of AMI taken into account

- TURN concluded that only a relatively small group of high usage
residential customers can realistically shift sufficient peak load
to find bill savings.

- PUGET SOUND ENERGY: Mandatory TOU prices for all residential customers
abandoned in 2002 when analysis showed negative cost benefit and
higher,
not lower, customer bills

- Elderly customers in newly built multi-unit condos and senior and
low income housing complexes most adversely affected and without
alternative options

- Utilities typically couple smart metering with the functionality of
remote connection and disconnection of the meter

- These new meters may give rise to a host of degraded service options,
e.g., prepayment (pay in advance and automatically disconnect when
meter is not fed); service limiters

- Dynamic pricing does not “empower” customers; it presents a Hobson’s
Choice to many low use, low income, and elderly customers who must
use electricity during peak hours for health and safety reasons
(Chicago heat wave; over 700 deaths, mostly seniors living alone)

- A voluntary approach to dynamic pricing or relying on Peak Time
Rebates is preferred approach; PTR has been successfully
demonstrated to result is peak load reduction without TOU or CPP
=================