Page 7 - May 2017 Edition

— city of sedona pushes back
noISE news by cindy cole
radio frequency radiation ... increases the risk of cancer, increases damage to the nervous system, causes electro-sensitivity, has adverse reproductive effects and a variety of other effects on different organ systems. There is no justification for the statement that smart meters have no adverse health effects.”
Research also indicates the pulsed form of RF radiation may actually be more dangerous to people than a constant stream, like that found with cell phones and Wi-Fi. This research was conducted in the 1930s and examined sickness amongst radar operators.
Anecdotal evidence has even resulted in lawsuits against utility companies. Caitlin Phillips of Santa Cruz, California took PG&E to court to have her analog meter re-installed on her home after the company replaced it with a smart meter while she was away. She claimed she experienced headaches and anxiety within hours of the meter being installed on the wall outside her bedroom. When the utility re-installed her analog meter, her symp- toms disappeared. Others have complained of nausea, heart problems, insomnia and ir- ritability they associate with the meters.
And let’s not forget that we can choose whether or not we own or use cell phones, Wi-Fi and other RF emitting devices in our homes. And we can also shut those devices off when- ever we want. But there’s no way to turn off a smart meter once it’s installed on your home, and APS doesn’t want to give anyone the choice of whether or not to have one.
safety & security
Safety concerns surrounding smart meters have also been raised. In just the US and Canada, thousands of house fires have been blamed on exploding smart meters. In East Palo Alto, California, a fire in 2011 involved 80 burning smart meters. A truck struck a power pole in Stockton, California in 2015, creating a power surge that caused hundreds of smart meters to explode. A fire near Alexandria, Virginia in 2015 was cited by the fire department as being caused when “an electrical anomaly ignited an outside electrical me- ter.” [fairfaxcounty.gov/fr/news/2015archive/2015_04.htm#] Multiple reports of smart meters smoking, smoldering, burning, and exploding have been filed all over the country.
Research points to smart meters creating “dirty electricity,” which results in huge RF spikes that travel through a home’s electrical lines and can cause damage as well as ill health effects. In addition to fires, there have been numerous reports of home appliances that have been damaged or destroyed following installation of a smart meter.
Security is another issue that smart meter opponents have raised. A smart meter stores data on a homeowner’s electrical usage and then transmits that data wirelessly through a “mesh” network of other smart meters and data collection stations. The very features the power companies say will allow them to deliver electricity more efficiently are what make the system extremely vulnerable to hackers creating a variety of security concerns.
Technology observers cite the security systems in smart meters are very weak — basi- cally equivalent to using the word “password” to secure a sophisticated computer network. Unlike Wi-Fi and Bluetooth security, encryption keys for smart meters are short and easy to guess and are transmitted as plain text. The networks do not require authentication, so a hacker can tap into a smart meter grid just by asking to do so.
In 2009, the Federal Bureau of Invesitgation (FBI) investigated a mass hacking of smart meters in Puerto Rico. The bureau reported that perpetrators used an infrared light to connect smart meters to a computer and then changed the meters’ settings for recording power usage, all the while accepting payments from homeowners to hack into meters and lower electric bills.
The FBI also reported another type of smart meter hacking that doesn’t even require sophisticated technology. The placement of strong magnets on smart meters can cause them to stop reporting usage while still delivering electricity to the consumer.
In a 2010 FBI bulletin obtained by Brian Krebs of krebsonsecurity.com, the FBI stated they had assessed “with medium confidence that as Smart Grid use continues to spread throughout the country, this type of fraud will also spread because of the ease of intrusion and the economic benefit to both the hacker and the electric customer.”
privacy
And while utility companies promise the data collected from smart meters will be kept confidential and does not contain consumer identifiable information, evidence to the con- trary abounds.
In a marketing video published on YouTube [youtube.com/watch?v=uluKjzqHDz0] United Kingdom company Onzo, Ltd. touts its ability to provide a “characterized profile” of utility consumers “to give the utility . . . the ability to monetize their customer data by providing a direct link to appropriate third-party organizations based on the customer’s identified character.” Onzo has created a device that consumers can use in their homes to collect and share data on electrical consumption. How this data might be used by utility companies is still an open discussion.
In 2015, Miles Keogh of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners told Politico, “I think the data is going to be worth a lot more than the commodity that’s being consumed to generate the data. When you become a company whose most valuable asset is not the kilowatt-hours but the data, that fundamentally changes what kind of company you are.”
costs
In spite of all these concerns, utility companies continue to argue that smart meters will save consumers money and make their power consumption more efficient. But, again, this seems far from the truth. First, there’s the cost of the meters themselves. Where an aver- age analog meter costs less than $50, non-transmitting digital meters cost around $100 and smart meters (according to data examined by the German electronics company Sie- mens) average $221 installed but can be as high as $586.
In order to fully implement smart meters throughout its service area, APS is asking for a rate increase that will supposedly spread the costs of initiating the system amongst rate- payers over several years. This plan includes charging consumers who demand to keep their analog meters an extra monthly charge because a technician will still have to be sent out to read their meter. But smart meter installation has already proved to be more costly than planned, not only based on the higher cost of the meters but also on their shorter life spans and complications that have arisen, causing smart meters to be recalled and/or replaced within a few short years of initial installation.
In a request for data from APS made by local anti-smart meter activist Warren Woodward, APS revealed that it has replaced tens of thousands of smart meters that were only a few years old. “After an average life of just 4 years, smart meters were replaced as follows,” Mr. Woodward revealed. “19,203 in 2014, 22,287 in 2015; and, as of October 2016, 20,172 meters were replaced.”
Mr. Woodward quotes APS as stating in their response that the communication issue that caused the meters to fail “was first identified in 2014 and continues to be an issue today, albeit a minimal one.” If the meters continue to fail at an average of 20,000 or so per year, this seems hardly a “minimal” problem. How many rate increases will APS need to request to keep up with the costs of continually replacing non-communicating smart meters? Analog meters are generally rated to last 30 years and many continue to function long after that mark. It’s hard to argue a cost savings from this perspective alone.
To make matters even worst, many ratepayers have complained that, once a smart me- ter was installed on their home or business, their utility bills doubled or tripled with no significant changes to their power consumption. Utility companies, including APS, blame the difference on the previously relied upon analog meter, claiming the old meter had slowed down over its lifespan and was no longer accurate. The explanation concludes that the smart meter is now more accurately reading the power consumption of the consumer, even when there had been no previous indication of fault with the analog meter.
In the Netherlands, a team of scientists from the University of Twente and the Amster- dam University of Applied Sciences published a paper titled Static Energy Meter Errors Caused By Conducted Electromagnetic Interference [Frank Leferink, Cees Keyer and Anton Melentjev/IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility] toward the end of 2016. They tested sev- eral different types of smart meters and found that they do not accurately read power consumption under common conditions. Errors ranged from -35% to +582%.
“In the experiments (which were entirely reproducible), five of the nine smart meters gave readings that were much higher than the actual amount of power consumed,” the re- searchers concluded. “Indeed, in some setups, these were up to 582 percent higher.” Inac- curacies were attributed to specific components in the meters and to the modern energy- saving devices in homes like dimmer switches and LED bulbs which create erratic patterns in electricity consumption. The very things that are supposed to be saving consumers money on utilities caused the meters, by and large, to grossly overcharge.
aps rate case
Mr. Woodward is one of 40 interveners in the current APS rate case, as is the City of Sedona. He has been directly involved in the process by which the ACC is considering the utility’s request for increased rates and fees and other changes in policy.
After months of negotiations, APS reached a “settlement agreement” with a group of the stakeholders. The agreement includes fees for those who wish to opt out of smart meter installation as well as a rate hike and conditions and fees for solar power users. There are still 10 interveners that have not signed the settlement agreement, including Mr. Wood- ward. The concerns of the non-signers will be heard during hearings that are expected to take place in the coming months.
The settlement agreement would require all commercial and solar account holders to use smart meters with no opt outs permitted. It also requires residential custom- ers who refuse a smart meter to accept a non-transmitting digital meter. All analog meters would be replaced. In addition, consumers who refuse a smart meter would be subject to a $5 per month meter reading charge as well as a $50 set-up fee for new smart meter replacements.
APS conceded on a few issues like dropping mandatory demand charges and allowing current solar customers to keep their existing rate plans. The amount of the rate increase was also lowered from about $11 per month per customer to around $6. APS also agreed not to request another rate hike until 2019. But with about a million customers obligated to buy electricity from the monopoly, company executives would be seeing an additional revenue stream of $6 million every month, or $72 million a year, or $144 million during the term of the agreement.
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