Comments on: Lesson Learned from the PG&E Smart Meter Suit: It's a Communication Problem

By: Allie in Vacaville CA

Allie in Vacaville CA — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 22:26:06 +0000

Not only has our rate gone all over the place but last months bill, which has previosuly been rather low as the temps drops, just came in at over $500. Tehre is no rhyme or reason for this we have never in my entire time living in California had an electric bill for that amount. Something is definetly off somewhere. Even if I jhave left my air on all day when I am at work (i have doen this) we hardly ran the AC at all in Sept. we work all day for crying out loud there is no way that is accurate

By: judy

judy — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 01:04:34 +0000

Now that PG&E doesn’t have to pay a lot of employees to drive around, pay for fuel, trucks, upkeep of such trucks….when will we see as a customer our savings….? Why isn’t it passed down to us…OH LET ME GUESS, piss on us right?

By: Michael Bender

Michael Bender — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 23:58:05 +0000

I am looking forward to smart meters and the smart grid, especially once we’ll be able to get a power monitoring interface that can sit on my home’s LAN (please don’t make a USB/Windows-only thing!). However the big beef that I have with PG&E is their usury baseline electric rate plan. I work full-time from home and thus I’m not in the car every day using up space, fuel, contributing to air pollution and congestion and all of the other myriad things that a daily commuter (that commutes by car in the SF Bay Area) consumes. However I am paying through the nose for PG&E electricity since my job is a software developer for enterprise-class multi-user systems and I am running various computer systems and networking gear throughout the day, so I get bumped up into the higher levels of PG&E Baseline Tiered Hell. I contacted PG&E and told them my situation and asked if they had any type of plan that I could be one to reduce my rates since I am acting in a way what I feel is a net positive impact on the environment, but they said no, they didn’t cater to such folks as myself. I am concerned that when my smart meter gets installed, I’ll be put onto some sort of ToU (Time of Use) rate schedule and be getting screwed even harder every month.

TIme for PV I guess…

By: PG&E’s Smart Meter Report: A Case Study of Infrastructure Over Customer

Tue, 18 May 2010 14:13:01 +0000

[...] looking at its smart meter project entirely as an infrastructure play. It was largely only when the press started to report on negative customer reaction that they substantially beefed up customer outreach [...]

By: PG&E Apologies, Releases Data & Revamps Customer Service for Smart Meters

Mon, 10 May 2010 23:07:06 +0000

[...] May. 10, 2010, 2:15pm PDT No Comments 0 Utility PG&E has had a major customer relations headache, including a lawsuit and a lot of negative press, tied to its smart meter deployments. But on [...]

By: DruBlu

DruBlu — Wed, 05 May 2010 19:25:52 +0000

Wow Josh,
If it were that simple it would be solved already.
Do you think these customers do not know what their average bills are over the course of a year? Please!
A seasoned customer is aware their bill goes up in the summer. Subsidized customers know the bill will go up when they do not qualify any longer for low rate programs. These folks are experiencing unexplainable bill increases based on their known history with rate changes taken into consideration.
Communication is not the root problem, it’s arrogance.
These users are not phobic of ‘new’ wireless technology as Alexis seems to think. They are afraid of an empty bank account.

By: Control My Energy, Cut My Bill:Consumers | Fraz Us !

Control My Energy, Cut My Bill:Consumers | Fraz Us ! — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:18:13 +0000

[...] have been repeating in the wake of the growing consumer backlash over the smart grid. Residents in Bakersfield, Calif., and Dallas, Texas, have filed lawsuits in response to smart meters that they claim have charged [...]

By: Consumers to Utilities: Control My Energy, Cut My Bill

Consumers to Utilities: Control My Energy, Cut My Bill — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 19:33:12 +0000

By: GSmith

GSmith — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:06:15 +0000

I put a high efficiency furnace in my home last year on 4/28/09. Nothing else changed in my habits or my home in the ensuing time except the installation of a Smart Meter on 2/23/10. My bill went up 55% over the same time last year for the last billing cycle! That is 25% higher than the rate increase! A customer trying to conserve and save just can not get a break!

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 05:47:25 +0000

It is unfortunate that folks have blamed smart meters for higher bills.. All published tests I know of indicate that smart meters are more accurate than old meters. Old meters themselves were not always accurate, and, undoubtedly, some dead or slow meters were replaced in the process.

A few facts that shed light on the complaints:

The number of complaints is extremely low, in the low hundreds, relative to the number of smart meter installed by PG&E so far. Based on my last check, over 3 million gas and over 2 million electric smart meters are in place. The complaints are loud, thank to some good PR and media attention, but they are minute relative to the number of folks with smart meters.
About half the smart meters in Bakersfield were installed by July-August of 2008, and the second half was installed after July of 2009. At some point it will be relatively easy to compare bills of customer with and without smart meters, facing the same weather conditions and rates.
After the 2000 crisis, the California legislature has limited increases for lower usage customer (130% of the baseline amount or energy budget) and for customer on the low income assistance tariff. All of the rate increases since 2000 have been piled on usage at higher level for customers who are not on low income tariffs. As are result, the relationship between usage and bills is not linear, but exponential. Regular usage is at roughly 11c per unit of energy (kWh), while high end usage is at 44c per unit. A 50%increase in usage, which is very common over the summer, can more than double regular bill. Do the math on the PG&E rates (Google PG&E tariff book) and you can check this.
Over 35% of Bakersfield customers are on the low income assistance rates. Eligibility changes over time as folks get jobs or promotions. A high usage customer that switches from highly subsidized low income tariffs (oddly, enough the subsidy is bigger for energy hogs) can face a bill quadruple the size without changing energy usage. Again, much of this design rests on the CA legislature, consumer advocates, and, partly, on PG&E.