Letter to the Editor: Smart Meters Pose No Benefit to Ratepayers, Only Risks

To the Editor:

The is spending at least $22 million dollars (before interest and maintenance costs) on the Naperville Smart Grid Initiative (NSGI), money it has obtained from a Department of Energy grant (i.e., federal taxpayers) and the issuance of bonds.  $1.35 million dollars of this is being spent on a public relations campaign to convince the residents what a wonderful thing NSGI is.  The latest piece of propaganda, signed by DPU-E Director Mark Curran, takes up more than half a page of print in the Naperville Sun.  Would that you would give equal space to NSGI’s opponents.

Mr. Curran says that the smart grid is “very green”, but most of his piece has nothing to do with the smart meters that his department is forcing on residents.

The City’s Renewable Energy Program permits residents to purchase power from wind generators, many miles away from Naperville, at a highly subsidized cost — a program which in any event has nothing to do with smart meters.   The smart meters will permit residents “to take advantage of the lower cost of electricity during off-peak hours” and “control power usage during peak hours, if they choose.”  Few will do so.  

Most of the electricity use of a household is not reasonably time-shiftable. Further, the typical resident has neither the time nor the interest to remotely control his electricity usage.  He wants to pay the monthly bill and be done with it.  Those residents who already consciously conserve electricity, will continue to do so; those who do not, won’t.  As a nanny-state behavior modification device, the smart meter is doomed to fail.   

When Mr. Curran vaguely cites to a “demand response program”, he means that, for a lower rate and in most instances with additional equipment not covered by present funds, the City can upwardly adjust your air conditioning thermostat, disconnect major household appliances, or remotely cut off the power to your entire house, all in an attempt to reduce the City’s electricity consumption down to the energy currently available for the City to buy.   As a voluntary program, I doubt that this will turn out to be very popular either.  Expect both programs to eventually become mandatory, or so price-biased that the consumer really will have no choice.  Interruptible power, at variable pricing, will be the only kind the City will sell.

Meanwhile, all of the ratepayers of the City of Naperville are being compelled to pay for a high-priced, radiation-emitting, information-gathering gadget that only a very few will use.  The smart meters will not pay for themselves.  

The wireless nature of these particular smart meters creates health and security issues which have not been adequately addressed, and which have not even been tested by financially disinterested parties.  

Instead of paying for propaganda, and instead of ramming through a wireless communications network so hastily that they had to borrow the money to do it, DPU-E could have spent some more time making sure that what they are installing is safe, secure and cost-effective.  

And if they truly act on behalf of ratepayers, rather than on behalf of people making a fat living on multi-million dollar contracts, the City will offer ratepayers a real choice: to accept a smart meter, or to keep their old analog meter instead, with no financial penalty.  

Jeff Perkins

Naperville