Warning says this is coming even over owner’s objections
Brian Sussman, author of “Eco-Tyranny: How the Left’s Green Agenda will Dismantle America,” is warning that the federal government and the United Nations are teaming up to control energy usage in American homes.
Sussman, who also wrote the blockbuster “Climategate,” says the move could lead to citizens losing the freedom even to run their appliances as they wish.
The first step in the plan is the installation of “smart meters,” which are being introduced by power utilities nationwide. Unlike traditional spinning wheel electric meters, smart meters allow the power utilities to measure energy usage minute by minute.
The Federal Energy Act of 2005, signed by George W. Bush, mandated that power utilities offer “each of its customer classes … a time-based rate schedule under which the rate charged by the electric utility varies during different time periods.”
However, power utilities have begun pushing the installation of smart meters even without a customer’s request. As Sussman documents in “Climategate,” the energy company PG&E pushed the new meters on customers by saying that it would allow the company to collect data “without setting foot on your property and interrupting your schedule.”
The utility did not mention that the innovation would potentially lead to increased prices during peak hours and detailed tracking of each home’s energy usage, “Climategate” reveals.
More importantly, some utilities have begun installing the smart meters over the objections of customers, leading to several legal battles.
Considering that most US utilities are monopolies “regulated” by public utility commissions, this move allows the suppliers to forgo upgrades and increases of supply while jacking up rates. Essentially it is preplanned scarcity abetted by the watermellons and cronies on the puc’s. We’re getting the same scam in water supply as well.
Time-of-day charging makes sense. It is
not a “U.N. plot” in itself. That said, there
is indeed potential for abuse. Vigilance
is always required.
It costs them the same to generate the power, no matter what time of day it is. Charging more for power just because more is being used is simply gouging.
You are talking variable cost, which has
nothing to do with this. This is about
fixed cost, and distributing it to the
users who create the demand.
Business 101.
Gouging? Nice pejorative term having
no meaning in a business discussion.
pockets there is an extreme overabundance of power at night, the utilities could give it away free because it is not being used. During the day – especially in hot months it does cost more because utilities have to run peaker plans which are much less efficient, and if there is a max condition they need to buy spot electricity which is really pricey. If the Utility routinely runs with less than 5% reserve on the hottest day of the year then a new plant needs to be built which could cost billions. Charging more during the day and less at night to smooth
out the load will prevent this new plant cost and some of the peaker costs from being spent.
Basically you are wrong.
I’ll agree with GC here. Time of day charging is not a problem in and of itself. However, remote appliance control is something worth fighting against.
Please keep your rhetoric in line, Editor. I know you’re passionate and that it’s frustrating, but it’s easy to get caught up in the fervor and then be dismissed by the middle ground instead of persuading them.
Not my article Ben, nor rhetoric neither.
We have a different system of power supply Down-Under, in that it is generally State-built and privatization is a novelty. Everybody already pays taxes to build generators and it is damned-well up to the generators to have as much power as people want to use when they want to use it, not dictate that people should be “encouraged” (read: “price pressured”) into only using it when it suits corporate profit structures.
Bottom line is “you are paid to provide service availability at all times and in whatever quantity users require/desire, now do it!”
Frankly I can’t envisage a service industry that fails to provide the service on demand. Americans may be more Socialized than that, I don’t know.
I have discussed this before. Power companies
must have capacity to meet normal demand.
Demand usually peaks mid-August in U.S.
Daily demand peaks during daylight hours.
It costs the power companies substantial
money in fixed cost to have the capacity
available. Spreading demand off peak
could save them serious big bucks by
enabling them to have fewer/smaller
power plants.
Large American businesses are charged
for demand/capacity-to-consume.
Residential customers are not. ToD
charging would spread some of the
cost to residential consumers. Smart
meters will enable the power companies
to determine a residence’s capacity-
to-consume. This could enable them to
add a demand charge, though I have
not heard it suggested yet.
Most American electric companies are
regulated monopolies with guaranteed
rates of return. In the end, the cost of
power will be paid for by someone.
Smart meters provide a path to better
distribution of cost to the actual user,
and to incent users to help the power
company to keep cost down.
“Everybody already pays taxes to build generators and it is damned-well up to the generators to have as much power as people want to use when they want to use it, not dictate that people should be “encouraged” (read: “price pressured”) into only using it when it suits corporate profit structures.”
Your view is not uncommon, Ed., but there
is substantial cost to you for it.
I apologize for my comments. I’ll take it up with the editor at World Net.
To answer your question, this isn’t a service industry. The electric utility providors are regional monopolies. While you can choose who you wish to buy power from, the powerlines are not up for discussion and they can do whatever they darn well please. Not even in Houston, a cowboy town if there ever was one, will we have the support to change that unless something big happens. I think that support will come if aand only if they try to implement mandatory remote control of appliances
@GC, where I live peak demand is from air conditioning and people aren’t generally running clothes driers or stoves and they certainly aren’t heating water (that’s a separate tariff utilizing nighttime overcapacity generation anyway), i.e., there’s industrial use and cooling and not much else. There was talk of mandatory remote control of air conditioning units through smart meters for load shedding, a potentially lethal situation for the aged and infirm. We pay very high personal tax rates under the understanding State and Federal governments construct and maintain infrastructure such that services like power, water and sewerage are available on demand (we have not long moved from the model that telephone service wiring was provided to every household at a standard rate regardless of location through cross subsidy in the Post Master General’s office [PMG]).
Recent Socialist governments have begun stripping ‘profits’ from the power and water utilities to support their agendas and this has led to under-budgeting in construction and maintenance and rapidly escalating service charges – and shortages of both power and water.
Note that these were not created as ‘power companies’ here, they are State-owned utilities with the charter responsibility to provide power to every connected consumer. Same with water.
In france its degreed by law every home must have a smart meter by 2015. Resistance is futile
I too agree with Gamecock. And… with the same caveat: no remote control. Time of Day billing would encourage usage shifting by way of market forces. For me, that’s a good thing. If we don’t do this then there’s the ‘tradgedy of the commons’ in the putting of costs onto others for your extreme usage during peak hours due to level rate billing.
You are all arguing pedantics.
The same thing happened with water. When we were in a drought here in Queensland, the price of water was increased exponentially, however, now that we are virtually emptying our water into the ocean, the price remains just as high. No change.
There is no reason for the higher charges for daytime use other than that is what someone decided and sold the idea in such a way that we have accepted it.
If they can capture carbon dioxide emissions, they can capture the extra power generated at night and make it available for daytime use.
By now, surely, they have figures showing the amount of usage difference between day and night and season to season.
Maybe they can use computer modelling.