On 4/16/2012 9:56 AM, Home Guy wrote:
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.
....

We're not raising rates at all and are not using any federal stimulus
money. We expect to see a payback in 3 years simply on meter-readings
and billing errors.

In a longer term, if there were the fully integrated system, it could
indeed essentially self-manage for minimum expansive needs by a
combination of load-leveling and judicious load-shedding.

I expect unit costs to come down significantly; that article was dated
'09; our unit costs aren't as high as the lower of the range of numbers
given there at this time.

Other utilities have different constraints of course.

Overall, I think it's inevitable whatever your personal opinion.

I'd suggest you read up on CSAPR and some of the other related pushes
against conventional generation and you'll be wishing for something as
innocuous as "smart meters" to complain about.

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