By Emerson Drake
2/10/10
Despite the fact MID General Manager Allen Short said just two months ago at a District Board meeting, “We’ve had no problems with smart meters. Those people who wrote letters to the Modesto Bee were behind in their electric bills”.
Mr. Short made the statement during a Board meeting in response to a spate of letters written to complain about the accuracy of the new smart meters.
Now thanks to a Modesto resident who read seven problems into the record just two weeks ago, MID has made an about face and addressed the situation publicly.
#1. Meter defects- Originally MID claimed no problems with the meters. It turns out 19,750 meters (18.45% of all meters installed by MID) were returned to Mexico for repairs. Returned meters often had mismatched components which caused communication problems.
#2. Meters caused GFI problems-MID spent over $138,000.00 in overtime repairs to homes where the meters caused the GFI circuit breaker to trip causing service disruption for the homeowner.
Modesto’s Head Electrical Inspector said while the people changing home wiring weren’t electricians, that it was the same as having a handyman in your home redoing the wiring so no inspection was needed, and that the homeowner assumed responsibility for the repairs.
MID made the claim they weren’t aware of any homeowners paying for their own repairs, but if the homeowner didn’t know MID was at fault, they wouldn’t have contacted them.
#3. Meter accuracy-While some meters have been off as much as 30% MID assures customers this is a small number of meters. But they also acknowledged they have checked less than .5% or less than one half of one percent of all meters (that represents 535 meters out of 107,000).
#4. Smart meters come with a remote disconnect switch that sometimes won’t reset until the meter is replaced.
#5. An unknown number of meters fail to display usage- This effects customers who might like to monitor their own usage.
It has been likened to pumping gas into your car but having no way of knowing how many gallons are being pumped.
#6. Peak demand readings fail to reset-Only effects commercial customers. MID has blamed this problem on meter readers.
#7. AMI or smart meters are a result of modifying an existing meter with components from another source-
The only way these meters can be considered truly accurate is to check each one individually. As of several weeks ago these individual checks were not being preformed.While we understand this information has been withheld from the public until Tuesday, why the local paper is failing to inform the public is unknown.
I would encourage anyone who has experienced an increase in their electric bill to call MID and insist they check out the accuracy of the AMI smart meter.
If you are experiencing GFI (ground fault interrupter) circuit difficulties also call MID.Now can one honestly say there are no problems with the MID smart meters?
Director Van Groningen said during the meeting the Board had been kept aware of the smart meter situation.
So then Mr. Van Groningen, why did you let Allen Short stand up and tell the public you were experiencing no problems with these meters?
