William: Many non-net-metered folk I know claim that their bills and consumption have increased dramatically after the arrival of their Smart Meter and have asked me for advice. For the most part I beg off....I'm not really in the business of testing Smart Meters. The weather has been so wet and cold this year that I suppose it could be due to increased electric use over last year. I have wondered if the old cyclometer type meters have just worn down and had been under-reporting consumption. This has been the case in a few of our own installs when the new (non-smart) meter arrives after a PV install and shows increased total consumption ( PV production + metered consumption ) over previous billing periods. When this happens (very rarely) we will test the new meter against our own readings. But we have had another batch of customers who received the Smart Meters by mistake and were penalized until they could have a not-so-smart meter re-installed. We had to send an email blast to our customer base alerting them not to let the Edison subcontractor install any meter if it is part of a neighborhood wide campaign and to call us or the utility to make certain the meter that they are getting is dumb enough to know that the electrons may go backwards, occasionally. Patrick A. Redgate Ameco Solar, Inc. 7623 Somerset Blvd, Paramount, CA 90723 _www.solarexpert.com_ (http://www.solarexpert.com/) _www.amecosolar.com_ (http://www.amecosolar.com/) 562-633-4400
In a message dated 3/6/2011 6:56:05 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes: William, We have run into issues with smart meters. We had a customer in one of the pilot neighborhoods. What we saw was the meter registered his production as consumption. Effectively doubling his consumption per the meter. After some research it was determined that while the new smart meters were indeed net metering capable the software back at the reporting station was not net metering capable. Solution was to install an old dumb meter which was bi_directionally accurate. I hope this helps. Cheers Carl Sunrock Solar LLC On Mar 5, 2011 6:47 PM, "William Miller" <[email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) > wrote: > Friends: > > Our local utility (PG&E) is installing smart meters. These will not apply > to interconnected customers because the meter apparently is not capable of > two way metering. > > There has been a lot of controversy about smart meters regarding safety, > accuracy and many other issues. Do any of you have any evidence that smart > meters are a problem in any regard? > > Thanks, > > William > > > Please note new e-mail address and domain: > > William Miller > Miller Solar > Voice :805-438-5600 > email: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) > _http://millersolar.com_ (http://millersolar.com/) > License No. C-10-773985
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