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SDG&E hopes to use digital electricity meters
Devices would help customers plan usage
<!-- CUTLINE: San Diego Gas & Electric plans to replace old-fashioned electricity meters with wire-
less, digital devices. One was tested yester-
day in Clairemont. K.C. Alfred / Union-Tribune
-->
April 12, 2007
State regulators today are expected to approve a plan by San Diego Gas & Electric to replace old-fashioned electricity meters with wireless, digital devices over the next five years at a cost of $572 million.
Utility officials and a San Diego consumer advocate said they expect the Public Utilities Commission to permit the installation of 1.3 million of the meters in SDG&E's service area by 2011.
The switch would mark a major technological leap for the region's power grid, akin to the switch from rotary-dial telephones to touch-tone devices.
Old-fashioned meters, with their distinctive rotating discs, have been around for a century and do little more than keep track of how much electricity a customer has used.
The new devices will be able to communicate directly with the utility and with specially equipped appliances and computers inside homes and businesses, providing real-time data that will help customers decide when they should increase their electricity usage to take advantage of cheaper power prices during low-demand periods or reduce usage when demand rises and prices spike.
"If you are sitting at your desk at work and we send you an e-mail saying (electricity) demand is peaking, you might be able to turn off your ice maker and increase your air conditioner temperature by four degrees," said Debra Reed, president of SDG&E.
The program also includes plans to replace SDG&E's 900,000 natural gas meters with digital devices similar to the new electricity meters.
Savings produced by the devices will pay for much of their cost. The utility will no longer need to send workers to houses and businesses each month to read meters. Instead, electricity usage will be monitored remotely through the meter's wireless communications capabilities. The devices also should reduce meter-reading errors.
Customers will foot the remaining cost for the meters, Reed said. The average residential customer will pay an extra $1 to $1.50 a month for the technology. In March, the average residential customer paid $73.75 for electricity service, SDG&E spokesman Peter Hidalgo said.
But those extra charges could be more than offset by a proposal to reward customers with bill credits if they reduce their power consumption when electricity is most expensive, typically on hot summer afternoons, Reed said. The savings could be as much as $25 to $30 a summer for the typical residential customer.
The credits are part of a larger SDG&E electricity rate case that is expected to be voted on by the PUC in early 2008.
Those savings, however, could be more difficult to come by for older consumers and families with children who might be more reluctant to turn down their air conditioners during hot spells.
Michael Shames, executive director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network, said his group decided to support the new program after SDG&E agreed to install devices that can communicate with appliances and computers inside homes and businesses as well as the utility.
"The structure they were putting in place initially was antiquated," he said. "They weren't taking advantage of (the newest) technologies."
SDG&E will select a meter supplier this year, said Ted Regeuly, director of the company's smart meter program. The utility has been testing two types of meters at 1,000 locations in San Diego County for the past year.
Workers will install the meters in phases starting in the fall of 2008.
Customers will be told an approximate date when their meters will be changed, Regeuly said, and power will be cut briefly while the installation is occurring.
The process shouldn't take long unless there is trouble reaching the old meter, he said. A utility worker should be able to install 10 new meters an hour.
At the program's peak, workers will be installing 4,000 meters a day, Reed said.
The utility will publicize installation plans through town meetings, advertisements, door hangers and phone calls to customers, Regeuly said.
No employees now reading meters will be laid off, Hidalgo said. Instead, they will be retrained or leave the company through attrition.
Utility Consumers' Action Network
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Smart Meters
SDGE installed a smart meter on my home on July 18, 2008 in conjunction with my existing PV system. Initially SDGE could not provide any instructions on how to read the meter, it cycles through a series of 25+ screens some of which have numbers others do not. I received my first bill on the new system yesterday and have not been able to find anyone at SDGE who can explain the bill to me. The meter reading from 7/18/08 was 5 (new meter) and the reading from 8/17/08 was 0 yet the bill shows a total usage of 210 kw. The rep I spoke with could not explain how 0-5 = 210. You would think with a new meter rollout that they would be able to answer simple questions like this one.
The major appliance parts in
The major appliance parts in your home -- refrigerators, clothes washers, dishwashers -- account for a big chunk of your monthly utility bill. And if your refrigerator or washing machine is more than a decade old, you're spending a lot more on energy than you need to.
WHY THE EXTRA SURCHARGE ?
The article says the average residential customer will pay an extra $1 to $1.50 a month for the technology.
The REAL reason to do the retrofit is to get rid of meter readers, thus SAVING SDGE money.
(sure they're also going to make extra money later by time basing electricity)
Yet what, we're going to pay a extra $18/yr forever for a $100 meter ?
When meters were replaced in Chicago for the same reason, there was no additional charge.
Why didn't UCAN object to this ?
SDG&E Smart Meters
I wonder what you (UCAN) were thinking when you gave your support to SDG&E regarding their smart meters. The stated goal is to reduce peak demand for electricity and this will be accomplished by charging more for electricity used between 12 noon and 6 PM. This will cause consumers to either pay through the nose for electricity used during these hours, and/or suffer in the heat during the summer months, and for those with heat pumps or electric heat, to be cold on winter afternoons. What this does is shift the cost of capital investment from SDG&E to the consumer. Where SDG&E would have been required to invest in more and newer more efficient generation facilities, now the consumer will be “encouraged” to buy new windows, insulation, new HVAC equipment, and/or be miserable during the afternoon.
There is a really insidious side to this. What about people who are at home all day, not out of choice, but because they are retired? I’m talking about older people that have less tolerance for heat and cold and live on fixed incomes. This new policy is an egregiously unfair shift of the burden to old people.
It will be years before I am old enough to be in this group, but thanks to organizations like UCAN I may be looking forward to a more costly and uncomfortable retirement. There is something that could be done to rectify this. Exempt people over 65 years of age from the higher afternoon rates
SDG&E Smart Meters
No one needs to panic about the smart meters because the details of the AMI rates will not be reolved until February 2008, at the earliest. The meters are not going to be deployed until the end of 2008. It's important to note that there are still a lot of details that haven't been worked out yet and that UCAN will continue to be very involved through the five-year deployment of these meters in order to make sure the details benefit consumers. It's important to keep reading the UCAN website and/or check back with us next year to learn the results of our efforts.
Executive Director Michael Shames said, "First, any real time rates for residential customers are going to have to be voluntary. Second, customers won't have to do ANYTHING.......SDG&E or third party vendors will be able to automatically control major appliances with some of the new functionalities that SDG&E has agreed to place in the meters. I strongly urge you to read the Smart Grid study that UCAN commissioned and is on our web site. It provides a lot of useful insights into what we have in mind. UCAN has pushed this issue for many years...........SDG&E isn't all that happy about doing some of the things we are pushing because it will make it easier for customers to self-generate and/or cut their consumption. But short and long term, I am convinced it is a good thing. I think if you review the materials we have on the UCAN web page, you'll come to a similar conclusion".
no no no
if you read UCAN's docs they brought these arguments up over 2.5 years ago... the concessions won address these
SDG&E's Automatic Metering
4/11/07
Re: “SDG&E hopes to use digital electricity meters”
This story reports on SDG&E’s plan to install wireless-capable electric meters. I don’t think this idea has been adequately researched.
There has been inadequate consideration of the risk to wireless communications systems of solar-generated magnetic storms. While infrequent, such storms have a well-known record of causing serious disruption of Earth-based communications and power systems. The story says nothing about this risk. The story says nothing about the possible sensitivity of the circuits to be installed to either solar-generated or local electromagnetic interference, including intentional jamming.
The story says the system will enable consumers and businesses to “take advantage of cheaper power prices during low-demand periods or reduce usage when demand rises and prices spike.” There is no inherent capability in the proposed system as described to accomplish this. We are not currently given public information on the times or amounts of changes in electricity demand or dynamic pricing, and the wireless system as described does not provide such a capability.
The proposal involves replacing a simple highly-reliable electrical device (power meter) with a complex electronic device. Where are the reliability and life-cycle cost analyses? What are the maintenance requirements and costs? - Not addressed.
The story quotes the president of SDG&E saying “If you are sitting at your desk at work and we send you an email saying demand is peaking, you might be able to turn off your icemaker and increase your air conditioner temperature by four degrees.” Nobody is going to be sitting at home or work looking for emails from SDG&E, and why would SDG&E want us to power up a computer for such an email if there is an immediate need for conservation of power?!
The story says that UCAN “decided to support the new program after SDG&E agreed to install devices that can communicate with appliances and computers inside homes and businesses as well as the utility.” Now just why would anybody want such a system or why would taxpayers and ratepayers want to fund such a system? We have enough “big brotherism” in modern society without connecting SDG&E to our home computers, toasters, washing machines, and refrigerators!
Bill Scott
UCAN supports digital meters
UCAN fully understands the potential of real time rates to play havoc with some households.
First, any real time rates for residential customers are going to have to be voluntary. Second, customers won't have to do ANYTHING.......SDG&E or third party vendors will be able to automatically control major appliances with some of the new functionalities that SDG&E has agreed to place in the meters. I strongly urge you to read the Smart Grid study that UCAN commissioned and is on our web site. It provides a lot of useful insights into what we have in mind.
This is, actually, something UCAN has pushed for many years...........SDG&E isn't all that happy about doing some of the things we are pushing for as it will make it easier for customers to self-generate and/or cut their consumption. But short and long term, I am convinced it is a good thing. I think if you review the materials we have on the UCAN web page, you'll come to a similar conclusion.
Hope this is helpful.
Digital gas and electric meters
Supposedly this new technology will save money, but for whom? You can be sure that for every consumer who "Saves" a buck there will be another who loses one. The utility is not going to earn less on these meters, but more. Consumers will merely get to pay for the meters and their maintenance.
How will we judge when we should reduce our consumption, if we can? Will we have to post a rate sheet, if we have one, next to our new digital readouts? And are we willing to spend time analyzing the rates and our usage patterns to try to save a buck?
I suspect there will be some big and unpleasant surprises down the road as the camel gets his nose deeper into the new technology tent, so get your checkbooks ready.
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