Smart Meters in California; Stupid Meters In Scotland

Posted on 17. Sep, 2009 by Ross in New Technologies, North America, United Kingdom

Two press releases today illustrated the Jekyll & Hyde nature of smart meters: one US company trying to help consumers cut bills, whilst a Scottish company installs models only of benefit to itself.

Southern California Edison began the roll-out of 5 million new smart meters to all of their residential and small business customers this week, in part of the$1.6bn, 3-year Edison SmartConnect™ scheme. Because all of the smart meters - Itron’s OpenWay® CENTRON® Meter - carry Zigbee radio chips by default, the meter can communicate with household monitoring software to give consumers a direct graphical handle on their energy consumption.

The smart meters will also be able to use the Zigbee protocol to communicate with future appliances, informing them of the current electricity prices so that they can make intelligent decisions about their own energy use patterns.

By empowering customers to such an advanced level, Southern California Edison hope that energy demand will be reduced by as much as 1000MW - roughly equivalent to the average fossil fuel power plant.

Penny-pinching Scottish stupid meters

By contrast, and at the risk of perpetuating a national stereotype, UK energy company Scottish Power has completed the installation of new pre-payment meters into some of the poorest households of deprived areas such as Glasgow, Edinburgh and Liverpool, whilst at the same time masquerading the new devices as ’smart meters’.

These type of smart meters are the sort which give smart meters a bad name.

They naturally include the most basic smart meter functionality - remote data updating. That enables the meter to communicate directly with the energy company, keeping them up to date with exactly how much electricity has been used. That enables the company in question to lay off the majority of their meter readers, savings large amounts of wages, as well as being able to process billing faster and more accurately.

The benefit of smart meters to energy companies are obvious, but in this case the benefit of smart meters to consumers is marginal. The meters being replaced were 340,000 token pre-payment meters, generally installed into homes which have historically had trouble paying their energy bills. As well as forcing consumers to pay up-front, most energy companies also charge such low-income families more for their energy as well, although Scottish power claim that their pre-payment customers actually pay less.

Tokens had to be purchased from local stores and post offices, so if the household’s credit ran out during the night or at weekends then they were left literally powerless until the shops opened again and they could buy more credit. ScottishPower’s new ’smart’ meters instead delay switching off the supply of electricity until the next standard working hours begin (Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm). How generous.

No intelligent monitoring. No future-proofing. Just a way of cutting costs and ensuring fast payments with a tiny sweetener for the customers inflicted with these devices.

Oh yes - the company was asked by regulatory body Ofgem to remove all of its token pre-payment meters by the end of 2009. By labelling such meters as ’smart’, ScottishPower will also likely be able to avoid having to change them for newer, more effective models for decades to come - except at a large cost to individual households.

Image of half-rainy, half-sunny sky (aptly over Edinburgh!) by Martin Burns @ Flickr

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Tags: California, Scotland, ScottishPower, smart meter, Southern California Edison, stupid meter

One Comment

Ricky Boyle.

06. Aug, 2010

I agree wholeheartedly with your article about so-called smart meters!!..Smart for who though?..An energy rich country like scotland,and a so-called scottish energy company,ripping off the poorest people,who are least able to pay their bills,are being charged the most for their energy,making their positions in society worse,making them poorer.Its all wrong and shouldnt be allowed.This company makes billions,and is only intersted in keeping shareholders happy.

I was in the position myself of being stuck with these meters for my electric and gas,and it was very hard going,deciding whether to eat or heat your home.Thankfully im now in a much better financial position as im now working again,and will do all possible to avoid having these meters again,and finally,lets not forget that once you have these meters installed,they dont want to take them out!!..Even when your able to pay by other means,i moved home to a house with ordinary meters thankfully..more should be done about this situation…wish you well in exposing this..

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