N.B. Power not taking no for an answer on smart meters just yet
CBC
A campaign to convince the 17,000 New Brunswick households that have refused the installation of a smart meter to change their minds will likely be launched in June, the utility's ongoing rate hearing was told on Monday.
N.B. Power vice-president Phil Landry said the utility is waiting for the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board to approve a proposed monthly meter reading fee of $4.65 on holdouts before trying one last time to win them over.
"We are waiting on the outcome of this proceeding before doing so," said Landry.
"In our communications with the customers we can share with them — this is the opt out or not opt out fee so they have the full understanding of what opting out actually means."
N.B. Power is in the final stages of adding up to 388,000 new "communicating" smart meters across the province as part of a multi-year effort to upgrade its electrical distribution grid.
The changes are meant to allow the utility to collect individual customer consumption data electronically in real time instead of once a month by a meter reader.
Landry told the hearing the utility ran up against a 4.6 per cent meter refusal rate among customers, about one in every 22 households.
Smart meters can be in constant communication with the power utility. That allows for instant identification and precise location of outages and lets customers track their own daily electrical consumption so they can make changes to head off large monthly bills if they choose.
In addition, the meters will eventually allow for pricing and service innovations, such as offering different electricity prices at different times of the day to match periods of low and high demand.
But the devices are not without controversy.
Online opponents allege a number of disputed health and safety threats posed by the meters. Some also question their accuracy and still others object to their constant farming of electrical consumption data as a privacy invasion
N.B. Power is proposing to manually read meters that have not been upgraded six times a year for customers who refuse a new device.
To pay that expense, it wants to charge those who opt out a special meter reading levy of $4.65 per month.
Landry told the hearing he believes that opposition to the devices have recently softened and is hoping that one-on-one discussions with refusers combined with a financial penalty for not switching might be enough to convince half or more of the holdouts to give in.
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