The Smart Meters are Coming. The Smart Meters are Coming. Pt 1

What I know about Smart Meters is limited but what I do know doesn’t entirely fill me with joy.

The first pieces of information from London Hydro - a form letter and small notice - arrived by Royal Post in late January.


["Plug in or plug out?"]

The letter began on a positive note, so I thought at the time:

Dear Gordon Harrison,

As you know, the province of Ontario is working toward creating a conservation culture that will help Ontarians to manage their electricity usage while helping the environment at the same time.

Hmmm, I thought. There’s room for improvement in our hydro consumption and helping the environment sounds good.

The letter continued:

By 2011, all homes in Ontario will have smart meters installed and will be billed through Time-of-Use billing. Quite simply, this means that the new meter will record the time of day that electricity is used in your home and the appropriate price will be applied for the cost of power at that particular time of day.

I suppose if the letter could talk and I said, so that means I’m going to be charged different rates for hydro depending on the time of day, the letter would say, yes.

Okay then, so what are the different rates?

The letter didn’t say.


And I wanted to know. So I started tapping my foot.

Our local hydro company quickly responded.

About a week later an employee of London Hydro appeared at my door, handed me more information and installed the smart meter faster than I could say ‘the smart meters are coming’ 5,000 times, i.e., in about 12 minutes.

However, any positive feeling about the conservation culture disappeared while reading the small booklet (‘Getting Smart about Smart Meters Answer Book’) the same day the meter was installed.

To be continued.

***

Have you read the booklet?

Can you guess what stuck in my craw?

Do you know what a craw is? Should I produce a booklet?

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