Stupid Smart Grid!
The road to a smart grid is apparently bumpy and very expensive.
Oncor, a Texas utility provider, recently rolled out over 750,000 smart meters to its customers. And its timing couldn’t be worse.
According to some customers, the smart meters are over-charging them for electricity, with one woman seeing her bill quadruple to 4,400 kWh in November.
Complaints have increased ten-fold, and the company argues that it’s largely due to an unusually cold winter. They cite the fact that three fourths of those complaints are from customers with traditional “dumb” meters.
Time, and some independent verifiers, will tell whether there’s wide spread meter malfunction or it’s truly just due to the weather. In the end, it’s probably some combination of both.
It would be interesting to know how many of the complaints come from houses with heat pumps. As we’ve seen before, if the weather gets cold and electric strip heaters need to supplement the heat pump, the electric bill can add up fast. Combine that with the typically slap-dash insulation in southern homes, and you have a recipe for angry customers.
Another piece of the puzzle may be rising energy prices. I don’t know about Oncor, but take a look at the prices I’ve been paying to Duke Energy over the last year and a half:
Electricity Prices
2010 prices are in green, and show an increase of over 10% compared with the beginning of 2009. That’s a lot!
So, is it the perfect storm of weather and energy prices, or is the smart grid really that stupid?
Can't get enough? Try these related posts:
