Australian power companies have been caught trying to grab an extra $500 million to pay for its smart meter roll-out.
Smart meters are being promoted s around the world, as the energy industry tries to cement the present system into place via the massive investment required to build the smart grid.
In Britain, fear is growing that the big six energy suppliers could use a roll-out of smart meter technology to “mis-sell” gas and electricity. The UK’s 53 million gas and electricity meters are to be replaced with devices that display the cost of energy being used.
In British Columbia, Canada, there is a $1bn compulsory program to roll out smart meters whihc the local Hydro company claims will save all users money. They deny that smart meters will be used to introduce “time of use” billing, but few believe them.
Australia’s Herald Sun revealed the total cost of the bungled smart meter program had soared to $2.32 billion, adding $100 a year to power bills.Power companies had wanted to increase charges by 61.7 per cent between 2011-15 but, if yesterday’s draft ruling is confirmed, the rise would be cut to 20.3 per cent, just to pay for the meters.
17 Responses
I’ve only just moved onto a property in Melbourne Australia. The dumb smart metre has been installed two metres from my bedroom and the electro magnetic frequency is blitzing my brain . I have massive headaches, mild depression , high irritability and crying a lot from the pain. The electrical company CitiPower told me they were not able to remove the microwave smart metre even after I had asked them to replace it with an analogue metre. So now I pay a high rent whilst not sleeping there. Every night I sleep elsewhere until I can figure out the Faraday Cage radiation deflective solution. The government does not support me. The electrical company is not listening. All of the people I know support me and many have been bullied into accepting a smart metre without being fully aware of the detrimental consequences to our health and finances.
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B.C. Hydro’s C.E.O or General Manager, should have black on white conformation, that these meters are safe from illness,privacy invasion, higher bills and no damage to private property.
Dear Readers,
Electric Smart Meters are not smart, they are dumb ! They are also a health – hazard. I know of many people who suffer sleeplessness and other medical ailments after these accursed machines are fitted to their meter boxes after the trusty and simple and accurate analog meter has been replaced by the so-called smart meter. I have refused to have one fitted to my meter box and have padlocked my meter box and will sue the manager of the power company which supplies our electricity if he tries to get his Goon Smart Meter Men fit a Smart Meter to my property. I have warned him by registered letter and his Meter Installer Servants as well. Smart Meters have been reported by The World Health Organization the W.H.O to now constitue a real hazard to both human and animal life and plant life from the present and mounting evidence of damage, such as various forms of cancer to other forms of medical ailments to tingling in the human body such as hands feet arms or anywhere else in the human body when the subject is exposed to these Microwave forms of energy given off by smart-meters and the radio communicating devices which support and broadcast both to the smart meters and to the Electricity power stations as well. The W.H.O has also found that there is no actual known safe level for Microwave radiation from the Smart Meters or the Radio Frequency Broadcasting and receiving towers supporting this now proving to be dangerous technology as well as the now proving to be dangerous mobile phone technology which is also a growing blight upon our Planet Earth. Yes even plant life is killed when in close proximity to the harmful effects of this Microwave energy. This we also have proof of here in Australia and overseas.
The only people who gain by this evil form of warped technology are the owners and shareholders of these accursed smart meters and the power companies who support them as well as the misbegotten share-holders who serve to reap a huge financial gain by supporting these tools of The Devil.
Sincerely,
Richard Leschen.
They installed mine without my consent and now I pay TOU pricing. On peak is double what they charge for off peak. About the only thing you can do is vote with your dollar and go off-grid. I started building my off-grid solar panel system thanks to the power companies greed. I use my battery bank during on peak and recharge them at night during off peak. My latest bill was for $100. $30 of actual usage and $70 in fees and taxes. Solar panels are available for less than a buck a watt now so everytime you het gouged buy a panel and eventually you will be off-grid with FREE electricity from the sun. They spent a billion on smart meters here and forced customers to eat it. They don’t care since they have a monopoly and electricity is a necessity of life. Company name? Ontario Hydro. At a time when solar keeps getting cheaper they are going in the opposite direction and spending recklessly. They already collapsed once – won’t be long till it happens again. Over two thirds of the employees at OPG make over a 100g’s a year while customers starve and face disconnection, death and loss of their homes due to excessive billing. Only solution IMO is to vote with your dollar and go off-grid. Disgusting company and politicians to thank for he mess. Won’t be long until it all collapses again due to excessive payroll. Free power from the sun. No taxes. No oil companies. No government bullshit. No price gouging. No emissions. No noise. Just beautiful free sunshine.
Peculiar when priorities seem to focus on cost over safety. These suckers precipitate the thermal heat effect on ALL biological tissue\, visible on humans by skilled use of thermography, ( thermoguy.com) . So they slow cook you from the core outward visible in under 6 minutes. This is weapns grade frequency conflict incompatible with geomagnetic lines and human frequencies. Result? Destruction of our own frequencies leads to compromised immune system a period of latency disease, and ultimately human electrical failure.
100X the RF & microwave frequencies of a cell phone, closer to tower strength, ubiquitous & turns your body into an involuntary transmission receiver. Even wired the Itron has an SMPS capable of spiking induced induction harm to the entire ecosystem. And then there are the collectors and aggregators, the EMF drift net system that effectively privatizes the Commons airspace.
Put this uninsurable device out of its misery & yours & try to save birds bees, bats and butterflies, all whho get lost & die, navigational creatures whose magnetite dependent brains are rapidly being destroyed by this toxic tech roll out of a device capable of 24/7 unprecedented cyber smog,, indoors & out as it “chats w/13 separate appliances radiating inside your house. And this discounts the illegal surveillance, monitoring, profiling, data collection & resale.
Act now. Ounce of prevention: Lock box the analog. Too late? Pound of cure:
Shield the interior side of meter wall totally w/ the same insulation described herein. Then smother all signal with a a total wrap of Prodex grade or other flexible insulation sheets, making certain to use signal suffocating bubble wrap layers sandwiched twixt 2 sheets of foil to eliminate even a pinhole for transmission.
Anyone aware here that S/meters are illegal in Canada, a violation of Health Canada’s Safety Code 6 pages one to nine?
The Energy Act will NOT get B.C. Hydro out of Federal law liability.
Why illegal?
Causal link to thermal heat effect on biological tissues presented Oct 2010 to Standing Committee of House of Commons by Thermoguy Curtis Bennett led to recommendations to alert Health Canada that they are negligent & violating their own Safety Cods 6 created to protect us from EMFs.
In the uk it’s considered a small miracle if an energy company manages to calculate your bill correctly even using a flat rate, if this is constantly changing first there will be no chance of them working it out correctly and second it will be so complicated no one will be able to work it out for themselves, I suspect the latter is the energy companies real motivation behind smart metering
Our Itron Meters cost somewhere in the $100+ range. The signals are sent over the power lines, via the same techology as the internet. Mechanical meter went for about $25. They had to be calibrated every 8 years (some meters were in service for 30+ years). The Itron meters will be replaced at the end of their life. This is happening quicker than you would imagine. They are very susceptable to lightning and overheating from poor connections in the meter base (arcing). With only a short term warranty, many of our new meters are already being thrown away. By the way, It’s cheaper to use Meter Readers to read the meters once month, than to read them remotely everyday. Plus, with the human element you get a measure of security, ie: reporting tampering, break ins, etc.
Electrosmog is produced by these smart meters and they also can be used to gouge consumers. Privacy and security problems result as well. Would love to be off-grid – but have a small yard and don’t want to live under a battery (EMF’s from solar power too… no money for a solar set up. If it was very cheap and no EMF’s, no noisy generators, etc., maybe, but so far that isn’t looking like an option. Visit http://www.electrosmogprevention.org for our Anti-Smart Meter Project materials.
Len I am inclined to agree. I am not an insider but I used to work for a hydro utility back east and before that for a company that was at the forefront in developing smart meters as far back as 1989
The house I lived in two years ago had upscale meter. The meter reader drove up between two houses and transmitted a signal and the meters for both houses downloaded the readings since last meter reading. Saved a lot of time but evidently that was not good enough for the corporation. Rumour has it they are simply looking to make the utility look attractive to an offshore buyer before they have to spend significant money to do maintenance on the 50 year old transmission and distribution grid which admittedly is beginning to show some signs wear and tear. It was only a month ago one tower across the Fraser fell down shortly after it had been declared safe.
Bchydro is installing them so they can get rid of meter readers and the costs involved. What else they will do I am not sure, but the main thing is that this is not for the benefit of the customer.
I saw an article opposing the all electric car that plugs in over night. The article pointed out that all this would accomplish is shifting power peaks from the traditionl peak demand periods to peak demnd overnight. There is some merit to that argument. If the effect of installing smart meters logging time of use, a portion of the user base will smarten up and shift their peak usage to nigh time. The equipment to do so already exist on the shelves. In countries with unreliable utility power its already in use.
For the utility company the objective is to manage the peaks and raise the base load as high as possible while shaving the peaks to be as litle as posible. Doing so behind the scenes by charging higher rates for peak demand will backfire on the utility companies when the public finds out what is going on. Smart metering was already being worked on 25 years ago according to my own personal experience while working for a company at the leading edge of the technology back then. The only change now is how many consumers are being connected and becoming aware of the pratice. Industrial users have been subjected to time of peak use surcharges since the early 1990’s
I live in BC near the town wher they intend to start installing smart meters. I intend to be off-grid ready in the newer home we are moving to. Imagine their consternation when the smart meter reads zero.
AUDITS OF SMART METER PROGRAMS SHOW NO ENERGY CHANGE
Inexpensive Energy Monitors with in-home displays show energy usage and they do NOT require a Smart meter that costs customers about $300 each (paid for in their utility bills every month) and $ Billions more for the Utility company infrastructure to support the smart meters (also paid for by customers).
The smart meter in this article had NOTHING to do with people shutting off their lights. There are easier AND CHEAPER ways to remind people to turn off lights than to spend $ Billions of dollars for the utility company benefit so they can eliminate jobs, save money on meter readers (none of which is shared with customers) and shut off customer power remotely.
Inexpensive Energy Monitors give REAL-TIME (right now) usage information and they can be hooked up directly to the home electricity. Smart meters do NOT give real time information, rather delayed information. So not only do they cost $ Billions, but they interfere with and slow down the information otherwise available to customers.
If your utility company says their information is Real-time. Then ask them to explain HOW it can be real-time when they also tell us the information (and associated radiation) is only transmitted a few times per day and only for a few seconds.
The utility companies lie on both accounts. The radiation from the smart meters is transmitted 360 degrees with pulsed bursts of radiation once every few seconds traveling into and through the bodies and brains of each person in the home. Yet the information that customers can access on the routine usage of these smart (but dangerous and damaging) meters is delayed, so it is nearly worthless to customers – imagine reading your car speedometer with your speed information delayed by anywhere from 15 seconds to a few minutes (and to the previous day in most cases in the typical smart meter programs).
Pilot programs give customers FOR FREE up to $6,000 worth of equipment, appliances, etc that are NOT given to customers in the full roll out. Customers would have to spend their own $6,000 and more to buy appliances that communicate by wireless with the meters and buy their own real time monitors that show real time use, which smart meters do NOT.
In every single audit of smart meter roll-outs after a year or more, there are NO energy savings, but the COSTS persist.
SMART METERS LINKED TO CANCER.
A. The WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION on May 31 2011 placed the Non-ionizing radiation coming from Wireless smart meters (and some other wireless devices) on the Class 2-B Carcinogen List along with DDT and Lead.
https://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2011/pdfs/pr208_E.pdf (pdf)
B. The National Institute of Health months ago found biological changes in the brain after only minutes of exposure to non-ionizing radiation.
https://jama.ama-assn.org/content/305/8/808.abstract
C. Laboratory Scientists have observed
(1) Human Cell Damage
(2) DNA Chain Breaks
(3) Breaches in the Blood-Brain Barrier
from levels of non-ionizing radiation lower than that emitted by WIRELESS Smart meters.
So MANDATORY installation of Wireless smart meters on people’s homes has to STOP.
Because Cell Phone use and other devices are Voluntary and can be shut off at the user’s discretion, that is a different issue.
1. WIRELESS SMART METERS – 100 TIMES MORE RADIATION THAN CELL PHONES.
Video Interview: Nuclear Scientist, Daniel Hirsch, (5 minutes).
https://stopsmartmeters.org/2011/04/20/daniel-hirsch-on-ccsts-fuzzy-math/
2. WIRELESS SMART METERS – CANCER, NERVOUS SYSTEM DAMAGE, ADVERSE REPRODUCTION AFFECTS.
Video Interview: Dr. Carpenter, New York Public Health Department, Dean of Public Health, (2 minutes).
https://emfsafetynetwork.org/?p=3946
3. THE KAROLINSKA INSTITUTE IN STOCKHOLM (the University that gives the Nobel Prizes) ISSUES GLOBAL HEALTH WARNING AGAINST WIRELESS SMART METERS.
2-page Press Release:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/48148346/Karolinska-Institute-Press-Release
4. RADIATION MEASURED FROM SMART METER MOUNTED ON A HOME ONCE ACTIVE IN THE UTILITY SYSTEM SHOWS RADIATION BURST PULSES APPROXIMATELY ONCE EVERY FOUR SECONDS 24 HOURS PER DAY traveling through the bodies and brains of the inhabitants of that home. Laboratory tests of meters NOT active in system can show much less activity.
Youtube Video (6 minutes, 1st minute is sufficient).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRejDxBE6OE
MUST-SEE 4-minute youtube video on Smart meters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8JNFr_j6kdI
Everything about the Smart Grid costs more money. The meters, equipment in the substations, computer equipment in the offices, software maintenance; just to name a few. The weakest areas in the system is at the beginning and the end. The computers have to be strong enough to handle the the information (my utilities’ isn’t). And, the meters (Itron) are accurate but not durable.
In less than 10 years the basic service fee has went from $7-8 dollars to more than $17. The KWH rate has gone from$.05-.06(estimated) to $.10 including fuel surcharges. Our Co-op’s debt has tripled, to over $150 million. That’s for 46000 customers in Western Kentucky.