Last week with the snow we saw a bunch of power outages, as we do every winter.
If the full smart meter network was in place the outages would have been repaired faster than they were. Not only would crews have been at work earlier, the crews would have known right where the problem was and organized their work better.
Did you know at the moment there is no way for BC Hydro to know where a power outage is or how far it extends? Without phone calls they do not know where the problem is. Not only that, BC Hydro does not know where and what sort of problems there are in the network.
Another big problem now is that crews need to figure out if they have fixed the full extent of the outage and there is no easy tool to do so. They have to check each house to find out if people have power or not.
Smart meters mean that power outages will be fixed faster and for less cost than now. What is it worth to you to have shorter power outages fixed for a lower cost?
Bernard von Schulmann
Victoria