Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine

LePage, legislators back opt-outs for CMP's 'smart' meter customers

http://www.theforecaster.net/content/pnms-smartmeters-030211

LePage, legislators back opt-outs for CMP's 'smart' meter customers

Mar 01, 2011 11:30 am

AUGUSTA — Gov. Paul LePage supports offering opt-outs to Central Maine Power Co. customers who do not want "smart" electric meters installed on their homes.

"Philosophically, he believes people ought to have the right to opt out," LePage spokesman Dan Demerrit said. "He doesn't have any reservations or concerns about the technology, but believes people should be able to make up their own minds about it and shouldn't be punished for their decisions."

Rep. Heather Sirocki, R-Scarborough, has submitted a bill that would force the electric distribution company to offer its customers an alternative to the wireless meters, which some say cause health problems and raise security and electrical fire issues.

"I was really pleased with the governor's reaction," Sirocki said Monday.

Sirocki said her bill, which will have to pass through the Energy Committee before it reaches the full Legislature, has gained traction on both sides of the aisle.

"There's definitely bipartisan support for this," she said, citing Reps. Andrea Bolland, D-Sanford, and Ben Chipman, U-Portland, as supporters.

The bill comes after six complaints about the smart meters have been filed with the Maine Public Utilities Commission – the most recent last week – citing various concerns, and asking for an opt-out provision. The issue is now in private settlement negotiations between some of the complainants, the Office of the Public Advocate and CMP.

"We're aware of the legislation," CMP spokesman John Carroll said.

Carroll said the company does not believe it is appropriate for all of CMP's customers to take on the cost of opt-outs for a small number of people. He expressed concern that offering free opt-outs could sharply reduce the number of people who participate and raise the per-customer cost of the program.

"If there is not a cost to opt out, that number could be much larger," Carroll said. "You'd be putting rate payers at an extreme and unknown risk."

Carroll said right now 3,400 people have asked to opt out, representing more than 2 percent of the 135,000 customers who have had meters installed. If that trend continues, he said between 6,000 and 15,000 customers may opt out.

"If it was one or two customers, we could probably do it," Carroll said. "But if it's 1,000 or more, that will make for a highly inefficient system."

Carroll suggested a large number of people opting out would also affect the entire smart grid program, which is designed to increase efficiencies by eliminating the need for manual meter readers.

At the PUC's request, the company has started evaluating the costs associated with keeping traditional meters for those who wish to opt out. Initial projections estimate it would cost individual customers a one-time charge of $124.15 and then $9.95 per month to support the separate infrastructure necessary to collect the data manually.

"This is about freedom of choice," lead PUC complainant Elisa Boxer-Cook of Scarborough said. "If the majority of people want these meters, the minority shouldn't be able to derail that. But the majority can have them; we just want an option."

House Utilities and Energy Committee member Rep. Mark Richard, R-Falmouth, said he has received a large number of e-mails from constituents concerned about the effect of smart meters, and that his committee will take the issue very seriously.

"The jury's out for me on this," he said Monday. "I'm trying to keep an open mind."

Educational efforts, manufacturing

While earlier options for opt-outs included a system that utilized existing telephone lines instead of wireless technology to hook meters into the smart grid, that system has been deemed too costly and focus has moved to keeping the old meters.

"That would be beautiful," Boxer-Cook said. "We would like that very much."

However, CMP has expressed concern that there are no longer any manufacturers of the old meters.

"We would have this legacy technology that we would be preserving because customers want it," Carroll said. "It's not helping people protect their health, not helping protect privacy. That's not what the PUC asked. This is about what's fair to all customers."

Eric Bryant, attorney for the Public Advocate's Office, said CMP initially declined to answer questions about maintaining the existing meters and that he had to file a motion to compell the company to respond before it released the most recent cost estimates.

"That's a big gap in what CMP should have done sooner," Bryant said.

Bryant said he would like to see the company begin an education campaign to inform its customers about the technology and the opt-out options available to them.

"I think that's crucial," he said. "I pushed the company to do an educational effort initially with this project. I think education back then would have helped quell some of this."

Request denied

The PUC ruled last week that CMP may not withhold financial information it claimed would harm its vendor, VSI Meter Services, and denied CMP's request to redact specific cost information about the meters and meter infrastructure.

In a Feb. 24 letter, the PUC said "vendors that do business with CMP should be aware that CMP is a regulated public utility and its costs and expenses may therefore be subject to public scrutiny," and ordered CMP to release a non-redacted version of its responses within seven days.

"I think it's only fair, since this case affects every single CMP customer, that every single customer deserves to know the cost of the opt-outs," Boxer-Cook said.

Meanwhile, another group has filed a complaint against CMP, citing health issues related to the installation of the wireless meters on homes.

The newest 10-person PUC complaint, filed on Feb. 23, cites health issues, from vision problems to nausea and dizziness, the complainants attribute to the installation of the meters on their or their neighbors' homes.

"This (complaint) is really focused on the health issue," said lead complainant Julie Tupper, who had her smart meter removed after suffering what she described as heart palpitations.

"I can still feel it from my neighbors' smart meters," Tupper said.

The complaint raises a question about whether those who opt out can force neighbors to also opt out. Tupper said currently people can ask their neighbors to call CMP and opt out, but that the electric company is asking people if they are suffering from health issues before removing the meters.

"CMP is very reluctant to change out the meters without ( customer) complaints of health symptoms," she said.

CMP's Carroll said the complainants argue that they need to create a zone around them without the meters. "That raises questions for us in terms of customers who do want a meter" he said. "I'm not sure how we'd reconcile that."

Emily Parkhurst can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 125 or eparkhurst@theforecaster.net

**************************************
Fair Use Notice: This website may reproduce or have links to copyrighted material the use of which has not been expressly authorized by the copyright owner. We make such material available, without profit, as part of our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, economic, scientific, and related issues. It is our understanding that this constitutes a "fair use" of any such copyrighted material as provided by law. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner

Comment

You need to be a member of Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine to add comments!

Join Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine

Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on March 2, 2011 at 9:56pm: http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/261131/ford-cfo-electrics...

Ford CFO: Electrics Are for the Rich

March 2, 2011 2:30 P.M.

By Henry Payne

Barack Obama and his twin, former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, say that electric cars are the future and they have tried to nudge their acceptance with $7,500 buyer subsidies. But the evidence is that electrical are expensive, third-car playthings for the Left Coast rich, meaning that $7,500 will mostly go to our progressive planners’ wealthy friends.

At the Geneva Auto Show this week, Ford chief financial officer Lewis Booth confirmed that “sales projections . . . for electric vehicles are very ambitious because I am not sure how customers are going to be able to afford to pay.”

Geneva, like the Detroit Auto Show, is overloaded with electrics. But with hybrids achieving less than 3 percent of the U.S. market after a decade of hype, automakers are expressing concern that money-losing electrics are not the nirvana pols have promised.

Booth raised concerns about green vehicles’ viability without state help this week, reports the U.K.’s Telegraph. It’s worth noting that Ford, led by self-proclaimed environmentalist and chairman, Bill Ford, Jr., fancies itself a global green leader.

“Electric vehicles at the moment are still very expensive and have limitations. There is a question mark about how long governments can subsidize vehicles when they are under so much pressure from other funding issues,” he said. “The customer is going to decide and we want to satisfy all customers, not just rich customers.”

With governments in Europe strapped for cash, the subsidy model is unsustainable, in other words. Yet, perversely, Europe is the model that Obama and Granholm want to follow.

Comment by Monique Aniel Thurston on March 2, 2011 at 8:32pm: From the REVE website :"United States: President Obama’s energy policy has supported Iberdrola’s plans in a market that is central to its development. The Company has already obtained more than $1 billion in grants from the U.S. government for wind energy projects. IBERDROLA RENOVABLES is the second largest wind farm operator there, with 4,600 MW in installed capacity and 25,000 MW in pipeline. Elsewhere, Iberdrola USA is engaged in major distribution projects including an 800km transmission line in Maine which will upgrade the connection between this state and Canada and also a smart meter programme for 620,000 customers in the state.

This comment comse from the website REVE which stands for 'Regulaciones Eolica con Vehiculos electricos : "which is spanish and I believe means " regulate wind power with electrical cars".

The website goes on to say that : Transport electrification may be an important step in renewables in order to consolidate and overturn barriers such as non - manageability and non- guaranteed supply .

It serves no purpose to tell the wind industry that their product is unreliable , they know it and that is why they will convince you that electrical cars will take care of that problem .

please educate yourself on the website called REVE .

Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on March 2, 2011 at 7:10pm: The radiation on the smart meters is different and supposedly bad. Cell phones may well prove to be bad as time goes on and their use is voluntary, i.e., self-inflicted. The next step from the smart meter is the smart socket/smart appliance where the Nanny Electric Company will decide when you can run your different appliances and when you can't. Iberdrola was given $96 million in federal stimulus funds. If they need to spend some more money accommodating those Mainers who opt out, they have a $96 million head start - given to this foreign company by the American tax payer.

Finally, when everyone uses their appliances off peak, it becomes peak. The game is rigged.

Comment by Harrison Roper on March 2, 2011 at 5:43pm: How about a comparison of the radio/whatever energy radiated from a "Smart Meter" compared to a cell phone's emissions? Remind consumers that we live with cell phones all the time, while smart meters are usually outside the house.

Be sure to get the emissions comparison from an independent source, someone with expertise who has "no dog in this fight." I think smart meters will be a boon if they allow consumers to know just when in each day the electric rates are lower, for instance. How many people know that our electric companies pay a fraction of the day-time cost for power late at night, for instance? Wouldn't you want to plug in your electric car at 10pm and have a smart meter set to charge it up from 2am until 5am (at a much lower rate) with an override mode for emergencies? Wouldn't you want to have a large capacity, well-insulated hot water heater that only comes on when the power rate is the lowest?

Our old meters cannot do this sort of thing. Let the consumers know the dollar benefits to them, and be scrupulously honest about the radiation/emissions, and the smart meters will be accepted.

Harrison Roper Houlton, ME

RSS

Welcome to
Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine

Sign Up
or Sign In

U.S. Sen Angus King

THE UNTOLD STORY OF RECORD HILL WIND

The Untold Story of Record Hill Wind, continued

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

Not yet a member?

Sign up today and lend your voice and presence to the steadily rising tide that will soon sweep the scourge of useless and wretched turbines from our beloved Maine countryside. For many of us, our little pieces of paradise have been hard won. Did the carpetbaggers think they could simply steal them from us?

We have the facts on our side. We have the truth on our side. All we need now is YOU.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

-- Mahatma Gandhi

"It's not whether you get knocked down: it's whether you get up."
Vince Lombardi

Task Force membership is free. Please sign up today!

Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

Badges | Report an Issue | Terms of Service