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IPFS News Link • Energy

Study: "less than 3% of today's smart meters fulfill 2009 promises of customer savings&quot

• Activist Post

By B.N. Frank

"Smart" Meters (electric, gas, and water) allow utilities to remotely control consumers' utility use.  They also allow utility companies to collect consumer usage data and sell it to 3rd parties including police departments.  Problems associated with them include fires, explosions, harmful radiation emissions, mechanical issues, embarrassing technical mishaps, and more.

Opposition to expensive, privacy invasive, ineffective, and hazardous "Smart" Meters has been worldwide since utilities started deploying them.  Adding insult to injury, the cost for their installation, maintenance, operation, and replacement is often passed on to consumers.  Nevertheless, proponents continue to promote them as beneficial to consumers and essential for "energy efficiency".  Numerous studies have already stated otherwise including a new one.  Go figure.

97% of smart meters fail to provide promised customer benefits. Can $3B in new funding change that?

Less than 3% of 2009's taxpayer- and ratepayer-funded smart meters now deliver full customer benefits, a recent study shows.

By Herman K. Trabish

An Aug. 30 Request for Information, or RFI, from the U.S. Department of Energy on how best to use $3 billion in infrastructure bill smart grid funding is raising expectations among energy management services providers about a new round of smart meter deployments by utilities across the country.


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