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Smart meters leading to higher rates

Re: Smart meters needed, costs returned to users, Letters, May 25, 2011.

Where does the billion dollars for smart meters come from? From charging us more. The BC Hydro business case estimate of savings over 20 years is a hope, at which time the smart meters will need to be replaced.

Readings from current meters and smart meters both show usage and can therefore both catch energy theft. So the main thing smart meters will do is allow BC Hydro to monitor our time of day electricity use and charge different rates at different times of the day.

If you have already reduced your consumption down to what you can, then shifting your time of day use will not save any electricity: it just makes for higher rates if you cannot.

If we will not be billed on time of day use, then why waste $1 billion on smart meters to collect and transmit time of day use? As CBC reported: “A survey by Toronto Hydro showed about 80 per cent of people using smart meters are seeing increases, not decreases on their bills.”

Why not use the billion dollars for actual energy savings or creation, or pay down BC Hydro’s debt that we also pay for? Our collective apathy will once again allow a waste of our money.

Robert Jeske

Langford