Smart Meters on the Horizon in Glendale;
Northern California Protests Continue 5


Glendale Water and Power held the first of three September community meetings on its upcoming Smart Meter installation project late last week. The city utility is pitching the new technology to customers here while communities and groups throughout the Bay Area are strongly opposing it.

The City and County of San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Marin County Board of Supervisors, Sonoma County Supervisor Efren Carrillo, the Marin Association of Realtors, the cities of Sebastopol, Cotati, Camp Meeker, Fairfax, Sausalito, Belvedere, Piedmont, Berkeley, Richmond, Ross, Novato, Monte Sereno, Bolinas, Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley, Capitola, and Watsonville, the California Peace and Freedom Party, along with the Utility Reform Network, the EMF Safety Network and State Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez have all called for a moratorium, a ban, or are opposing Smart Meters. Watsonville and Fairfax adopted bans on Smart Meters in August, imposing, as an emergency measure, one-year moratoriums, which include the infrastructure (wireless antennas for transmitting data).

Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors created an enforceable ordinance banning Smart Meters and infrastructure; it also joined the petition that San Francisco filed with the CPUC on smart meter accuracy issues.

Today’s Wall Street Journal cites problems with Smart Meter installations around the country and quotes Helen Burt, senior VP for Pacific Gas and Electric:

“We approached it as a roll out of infrastructure,” she said in an interview.

“The plan all along for outreach was to send customers a letter at installation” telling them they were getting a new meter but not providing additional details or making the case for why the switch was beneficial, Ms. Burt said.

She said the utility failed to understand the depth of skepticism about the need for new technology, privacy concerns with transmitting data wirelessly, as well as fear, in some quarters, about possible health effects from wireless radio transmissions.

In Glendale on September 1, GWP consultants told community members that additional wireless devices can be used along with the new smart meters to monitor utility usage, and the new meters are just one aspect of the 21st century’s “smart grid” power delivery system. Consultant Michael Karp recommended the August 2010 issue of National Geographic for an excellent layman’s rationale for the smart grid. (I couldn’t find the article online, but did find Putting a Smiley Face on Energy Savings on the National Geographic blog.

How continuous reports on household energy use will reduce overall usage remains to be seen; the consultants admitted that simply unplugging appliances will reduce energy use by eliminating “phantom loads.” Furthermore, the full capability of smart meters can only be tapped when new appliances, equipped with their own transmitting devices, communicate with the meters.


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Northern California Protests Continue

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