Anyone get a smart meter put in yet?

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Heard that you need to watch what you are getting billed real closely, some of the meters look to be malfunctioning though Oncor in North Texas area denies that they could be wrong. Had a story on local news last night that a couple in Plano are suing, said that they were hit by $1800+ monthly electric bills for each of the 3 past months, house looked to be about a 4000 sq ft two story McMansion built within the last 5 years or so. People are saying that the usage is about tripple what they had before the new "smart" meter was put in.
A Rough Rollout for Smart Meters in Texas - Green Inc. Blog - NYTimes.com

So when they change you out, your already being billed for the new meter itself, prepair yourself when you open the first bill under the meter.

Personally I think they will try every trick in the book to suck $$$ out of your pocket and I wonder why the PUC isn't all over this-maybe they don't give a #$%^ like they used to?

[roncd]

Got mine here in Temple late December. I haven't had any problems but there
has been a big stink raised with a lot of folks bills going up $300-$400 a month.
Oncor has said that January was colder than normal, which is was, but that much?

They have gone out to several residences and put back the old meters to get side by side readings. The first report had 4 residences with identical readings
and 9 with only minor differences.

There was also an article in this morning's local newspaper how it would be possible for hackers to get in the power grid through the smart meters and turn off electricity and run up bills.

Ronnie

[MikkiStreak]

We don't have Oncor, but our January bill was actually LESS than past years despite having added a third person to our house that month, and we never adjust our programmable thermostat....

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Maria, YOU DO HAVE ONCOR, they are the people who support the system for all of the electric providors in North Texas. So if a line goes down or a transformer blows ONCOR maintains the distribution system while TXU/greenmountain/etc sells you the electricity. If you look at the bottom of your bill you will see that you are paying around $3 a month for the new meter already though installation in Dallas may be at the end of this year (they were working on Richardson last Fall and parts of Dallas-per their pr people doing roadshows).

I think the safety features on access are poor and can be hacked by a smart 12 year old. Don't know how they could turn power usage up but do see how they could turn power off to a house, would be really nice to come home from a trip and find no power to your fridge for a week or two.\

They've talked about a lot of double meter tests here and show that they both read the same readings but that doesn't mean that ALL METERS are working right just the ones that they are testing and I can see where some of the meters are malfunctioning because of software. Also homes don't have peak pricing YET so you should be paying the same rate no matter when you use it. (Utilities will kick in the PEAK pricing plans after they get the grid all on smart meters in a few years)

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Maria, YOU DO HAVE ONCOR, they are the people who support the system for all of the electric providors in North Texas. So if a line goes down or a transformer blows ONCOR maintains the distribution system while TXU/greenmountain/etc sells you the electricity. If you look at the bottom of your bill you will see that you are paying around $3 a month for the new meter already though installation in Dallas may be at the end of this year (they were working on Richardson last Fall and parts of Dallas-per their pr people doing roadshows).

I think the safety features on access are poor and can be hacked by a smart 12 year old. Don't know how they could turn power usage up but do see how they could turn power off to a house, would be really nice to come home from a trip and find no power to your fridge for a week or two.\

They've talked about a lot of double meter tests here and show that they both read the same readings but that doesn't mean that ALL METERS are working right just the ones that they are testing and I can see where some of the meters are malfunctioning because of software. Also homes don't have peak pricing YET so you should be paying the same rate no matter when you use it. (Utilities will kick in the PEAK pricing plans after they get the grid all on smart meters in a few years)

[MikkiStreak]

We're in Wylie (just haven't ever changed what my location says on here).... a smart meter was installed when our house was built about a year ago. So far, we haven't had any problems. Our house is double the size of our last, so the bill doubled from our last place, which is what we expected. But after gauging that amount, we haven't seen any significant increases that are out of line...

But I feel bad for the people who have seen such huge increases in theirs since they were installed, because fighting something like this takes a lot of time, energy and money to fight...

[Carl Stone]

I've had one for years, here in Arizona. No problems to complain about, and the "time of day use" saves me money every month. Additionally, I pay the same amount every month, so we avoid the high Summer bills that a re normal for the desert. They look at the power use twice a year, and adjust the payment to coincide with that.

I went a little further than most folks do by installing a timer on my hot water heater (we're a totally electric home) because that is such a large consumer of power. It took a bit of adjusting to get used to the time of day use, but it has paid off. Nearly forgot, in my zeal to pay less to the utility, I also replaced all of my incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. This wasn't because I'm on some crusade to save the planet, it was because the Cf bulbs use less energy for the same amount of light, plus they produce FAR less heat, which helps tremendously during our Summers, in our effort to keep things cool inside the home. Thermostat set at 78 degrees during the hot months, and with all of that, my bill is lower, although not as low as I would like.

[texascbx]

I was a lineman many years ago for a small municipal electric company in north Texas. When people would complain about their meter, we would replace them with a new meter. The new meters were more accurate and it was nearly always in our favor, not the homeowners. So if you have an old meter and can keep it. by all means do. In my experience those old meters don't speed up, they slow down.

[Steelsun]

Just saw an article in one of the tech/IT blogs about how the smart meters have been easily hacked.

[Steelsun]

Not the article I saw, but similar: AP Exclusive: `Smart' meters have security holes - Yahoo! News

[mike78628]

I'm in the Bellaire/Houston area and had one of these new meters installed a couple of months ago. They came out yesterday and changed it out. No reason given as to why.

[Hanky]

They can shut you off from HQ, also in the future if they wish to they can monitor usage through indevidual appliences or so I have been told. Mine is two months old
and so far so good.

[darktiger]

Originally Posted by mike78628

I'm in the Bellaire/Houston area and had one of these new meters installed a couple of months ago. They came out yesterday and changed it out. No reason given as to why.

You live in Bellaire, so do I. Cool.

Mine was changed out 4 weeks ago. But the "apparently" my house usage went from 800kwh to 5000, which of course is wrong. The bad thing is in the beginning they "Reliant" were trying to give me the run around. They were saying that all they do is bill, and it is centerpoint that gives them the numbers.... But the last three months they have been billing us around 5000kwh, imagine the bill...... But last week after fighting them for a while, they said it was their fault.... But I will want to know the reason why. Another odd thing is they had an additional house/address under my account..... I think I would know if I own another house somewhere else.

[MicWayWal]

Originally Posted by DEMDeepEllumMusic

... would be really nice to come home from a trip and find no power to your fridge for a week or two...

Everyone knows when their power is about to be cut off for non-payment. Leaving for a trip knowing your power is about to be cut off is not a smart move.

[MicWayWal]

The sky is falling - The SKY is falling.