We CAN SAY NO to Smart Meters **SPREAD THE WORD**

[pinhead]

This is a perfect example of the internet making an expert out of everyone. I wouldn't go to my dentist for medical advice or a fresh water fish store for information about corals. They may be educated and even be considered experts but they are not experts in this field.

I will put much more weight on recomendations from the World Health Orgrganization than the Citizens for Safe Technology whose director Una St.Clair-Moniz has never published a scientific paper and is part of the " holistic parents hub" who seem to be into naturopathy, homeopathy anti-vaccine and other fallacies.

[rayjay]

The only complaint I have with them is the added cost of the electricity.
If I move all use to the night period, except for fridge/freezer etc... I will be paying more than I am now.
However, I don't want to eat only at night or watch TV or listen to the radio while I'm sleeping.
February Rates
7pm until 7am $.062/kWh
11am until 5pm $.092/kWh
7am until 11am and 5pm until 7pm $.108/kWh
Old Rates
$.068 for first 600kWh and $.079 over 600kWh
Interim time of use bill (lower intro rate) for 2094kWh was $161.54 and would have cost $158.85 under the old billing, and with the February 1 full rate for TOU it would be up to $206.76 which ends up being a 30% increase.

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by rayjay

The only complaint I have with them is the added cost of the electricity.
If I move all use to the night period, except for fridge/freezer etc... I will be paying more than I am now.
However, I don't want to eat only at night or watch TV or listen to the radio while I'm sleeping.
February Rates
7pm until 7am $.062/kWh
11am until 5pm $.092/kWh
7am until 11am and 5pm until 7pm $.108/kWh
Old Rates
$.068 for first 600kWh and $.079 over 600kWh
Interim time of use bill (lower intro rate) for 2094kWh was $161.54 and would have cost $158.85 under the old billing, and with the February 1 full rate for TOU it would be up to $206.76 which ends up being a 30% increase.

That's good info. BC Hydro has been quite adamant that they have no plans for time of day based billing. However, once the meters are in, the door is open & I'm hoping they'll be truer to their word than some of the politicians holding office these days.

[cwatkins]

Originally Posted by rayjay

The only complaint I have with them is the added cost of the electricity.
If I move all use to the night period, except for fridge/freezer etc... I will be paying more than I am now.
However, I don't want to eat only at night or watch TV or listen to the radio while I'm sleeping.

Fortunately they're not talking about time of day billing for us here in BC. Now that's not to say after the next election, the next government (or same government) could change their minds.

But I think because BC isn't a very big importer of electricity, then we don't have to worry too much about peak demands as we can handle the provincial load pretty well. Especially with new generation capacity coming online over the next little while (Mica and Revelstoke upgrades, IPP's, northern wind farm, etc). And in the next 5 to 10 years, we can potentially see Site C coming online.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

When I lived in Powell River (1997-2001), BC Hydro was already doing time-of-use billing.

Don't fool yourself. If they think they can generate more $$ with t-o-u billing, they will. These types of promises mean NOTHING!!!! Remember, NO HST? They just have to convince the government that it will generate more $$ that can then be added to the provincial budget and viola, Time-of-Use billing for everyone!

We're already getting screwed by the lower rate/higher rate system because unless you're a single person without reef tanks, there is almost no way to avoid being mostly billed at the higher rate. It's even worse for us since we share the Hydro bill with the people upstairs and so that lower limit is reached very fast with two households using it up, and then everything else is billed at the higher rate.

Personally, I'm not too worked about the wi-fi signal. It's the open door to T-O-U billing that scares me. I KNOW its just something they don't want people to think about but its in the works. Guaranteed. If they already find it worthwhile to do it in a tiny community like Powell River for well over a decade, how the BC Hydro execs must be drooling at imposing the same billing policy on the rest of us poor saps. And then you'll really be seeing a lot of reef tanks going on sale as people can no longer afford their electric bills.

A 20-30% jump will be a tipping point for a lot of reefers (if not the reefers themselves, then their non-reefing spouses).

OK, enough of an essay. Didn't want to join the debate till I saw what everyone is worried about over smart meters.

Anthony

[Reef Pilot]

We have A/C for our house, and the biggest draw on that is in the evening in the summer. The back (kitchen and family room, and master bedroom upstairs) faces the northwest, so worst possible scenario if they bring this in. However, if we can see our electricity draw over a day, or better yet in real time, on our computers, then we still have a chance to manage it, and minimize those costs. Our house is fairly large, so retains its heat (and coolness) for quite some time. Maybe we can cool it a few degrees extra, just before the higher cost time kicks in.

We also have a hot tub that runs all winter, and we could set a timer to shut that off at peak times (unless we are using it).

In the end we all have to pay for whatever BC Hydro costs are (since they aren't allow to make a profit). So if this allows them to lower their costs, and reduce the amounts of electricity they have to buy at peak times from Alberta (yes, BC is a net importer of electricity), then I am all for it.

[Lampshade]

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

We have A/C for our house, and the biggest draw on that is in the evening in the summer. The back (kitchen and family room, and master bedroom upstairs) faces the northwest, so worst possible scenario if they bring this in. However, if we can see our electricity draw over a day, or better yet in real time, on our computers, then we still have a chance to manage it, and minimize those costs. Our house is fairly large, so retains its heat (and coolness) for quite some time. Maybe we can cool it a few degrees extra, just before the higher cost time kicks in.

We also have a hot tub that runs all winter, and we could set a timer to shut that off at peak times (unless we are using it).

In the end we all have to pay for whatever BC Hydro costs are (since they aren't allow to make a profit). So if this allows them to lower their costs, and reduce the amounts of electricity they have to buy at peak times from Alberta (yes, BC is a net importer of electricity), then I am all for it.

There's lots of systems that automatically do that. In Europe they pay $0.35kW/h and up, it is very common there to have appliances with delayed starts, like washer/dryer/dishwasher. They also have electric water heaters that will let the water cool off a few degrees during peak pay periods, same with furnaces, fridges, etc. Over here it would probably cost more to implement those things than you would save, but there are options for it.

[Reef Pilot]

Well, by the time they bring this in here (will be a tough political battle first), maybe I will have a honking large controller for my reef stuff that I can also use to run my house.

[mike31154]

Careful not to confuse time of day billing with tiered use billing. Not sure how long ago it was implemented here, but BC Hydro has been billing us on a two tier system for a while now. Rounding numbers up to the nearest cent, they charge me 7 cents per kW.h for the first 1376 kW.h. If I use more than that during the billing period, step 2 kicks in at 10 cents kW.h. So far I haven't reached step 2 during any billing period to date. This type of billing provides users some incentive to not waste energy, since it's to your advantage to try & stay within the step 1 bracket.

The City of Vernon has started the same billing method for water use, with Tiers A, B & C. Needless to say, once you hit Tier C with water use, things get a little pricey per M3. There won't be quite as many lush green lawns in the Vernon area in the years to come. Not necessarily a bad thing, since the Okanagan is an arid place in the summer & water is a precious resource in these parts.

As far as power rates go, we're fortunate in BC to have some of the lowest rates anywhere. We're spoiled & it's easy to get up in arms about potential rate hikes. I think what I'm trying to point out here is that regardless of smart meters, there are plenty of ways for the government & utilities to squeeze the $$$ out of the taxpayer & user, smart meters themselves are not going to change that fact. Best thing to do is take advantage of the functions the smart meter makes available to you the user in order to monitor usage & in the end, cost of what you use.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

I'm not confused. Tiered billing is happening in the Lower Mainland. Time-of-use billing is being used in Powell River. I understand the difference.

I have no beef with Tiered billing if it was fairly applied. In our case, they should double our Tier 1 allotment since we have two households on one bill. They don't. That means we have most of our electrical usage billed at Tier 2 since two families are using the same meter.