Smart meters to “rip off” consumers?
The website www.smartgridawareness.org just published a story with the headline “‘Smart’ Meters are the Great Consumer ‘Rip-off’ of Our Time”.
The story is based on an article on the UK website http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/
This website (the “financial website of the year”) reports how British utility companies are planning to charge their customers double the normal tariffs at peak times i.e cold winter evenings when people most need to use electricity. (The term “Time of Use” or TOU may be used by the industry to describe tariffs that vary according to the time of then day.)
This is a potential risk for consumers everywhere in the world where smart meters are being introduced. (For the full story please see these links:
http://smartgridawareness.org/2015/11/18/smart-meters-are-the-rip-off-of-our-time/
For a NZ perspective on this issue, please see this link:
https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/government-and-electricity-industry-positions/the-advantages-of-smart-meters/
Please note that even if the transmission capacity of a smart meter has been disabled, this may not protect consumers from having Time of Use tariffs imposed on them; please see this post for details:
Comparing analogue (Ferraris) meters with smart meters which have had the modem removed
To keep up to date with the smart meter situation in NZ, please sign up to the free email list at www.stopsmartmeters.org.nz
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