“…California has become an international leader in fighting global warming, with a commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing our use of renewable energy and using energy more efficiently. But those changes won’t come cheap, and we should spend our money wisely if we want to tackle climate change, rather than using it to promote any trendy new technology that comes down the pike.

Smart meters, a cornerstone of the smart grid that we hear so much about these days, are a prime example of an unnecessary and expensive change that will have little impact on global warming.

So far, the meters have struck fear in the hearts of consumers concerned about their privacy (because they transmit data on individual electric use), have already cost utility customers more than $2 billion (spent by the California Public Utilities Commission to launch the program) and are blamed for inexplicably higher bills in California’s Central Valley. These high-tech, high-cost new devices were supposed to connect us all to our electric company, our appliances and the fight against global warming. So far, they’ve missed the mark on all three counts.

The electric companies want to use the meters to impose prices that change hourly on customers. By charging you more during high-usage “peak” times on hot days, they hope to persuade you to shift your usage to “off-peak” evenings and weekends, as many consumers now do with long-distance phone calls.

But load-shifting does not reduce total electricity use, and thus does not lower greenhouse-gas emissions. At best, the same usage during off-peak times will reduce the need for peaker plants, if peak pricing has the desired effect. But so would conservation, with the additional benefit of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. And there’s no question that conservation works.

In the distant future, the meter will supposedly connect to other modern new communications devices that enable us to check the price per kilowatt hour before we use the coffeemaker or microwave. That’s the new coffeemaker or microwave – most people will have to buy brand-new appliances and other equipment to employ the technology. Purchasing all these expensive new gadgets will cost each and every household thousands of dollars, and could take decades. So why jump the gun?

Some claim that just seeing the price information that smart meters can provide will motivate consumers to conserve – a hard argument to buy if you’ve heard the horror stories from Bakersfield, where consumers apparently have learned nothing from the new meters except to dread their electric bills.

If, as Pacific Gas and Electric has said, the problem is that consumers in Bakersfield are just using too much energy, then PG&E needs to provide better energy-efficiency services. One consumer who contacted TURN to complain about his meter said the electric bill for his 12-by-60-foot house trailer where he lived alone was $393 for one month. Not only did the PG&E rep he spoke to dismiss his concerns about the accuracy of the smart meter, but no help with reducing his bill or his energy usage was offered either.

The California Public Utilities Commission, having approved the installation of smart meters, must now take a step back, with a moratorium on their installation and an investigation as to their effectiveness and usefulness. They are likely to find that smart consumers, rather than smart meters, are the key to global warming.”