What Norway/Australia/MA Reveal About the On-Going International Smart Meter Agenda; If You Aren't Uncomfortable Yet, Please Look Again
"giving you more control over your energy usage"
Two articles crossed my desk in three days that are again increasing my alarm about the smart meter debacle.
First Some History: Massachusetts and New Hampshire
My colleague Clare Donegan was fond of noting “How dumb do they think we are?” Pretty, they think we are pretty dumb.”
The propaganda, outreach material, customer education, indoctrination, manipulative marketing that was distributed by utilities in the early days of smart meters claimed that “consumers wanted more information about their electricity/energy consumption”…..as if irresponsible, out-of-control appliances are akin to teenagers left home alone for the weekend who might throw a party and raid the liquor cabinet.
Images Courtesy Flo Freshman
It’s not the appliances that are out of control, it’s the out-of-control plan to control consumers through out-of-control technology enabling out-of-control pricing schemes (and the capacity to shut off power to the premises, under the guise of reduced truck rolls when a customer moves out, with less discussion of the implications for control of the populace by whoever for whatever reason, or the out-of-control risk of hacking and denial of service)
The truth: “Residential customers do not have the large discretionary load to shift in order to have a material impact on the … peak system load.” Comments Submitted by Eversource Energy to the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission, 2015 - SOURCE
Another truth: Most customers do not want “engage with the energy market” nor do they want to pay for the infrastructure to “create a borderless power market based on free competition between producers.”
Who gets the power? The data center’s AI or the household?
Top-Down Control of Smart Meter Opposition
In Massachusetts, advocates were subjected to foul play regarding smart meters, regulators, and customer choice years ago when their input was subjected to unethical controls, way back in the day. As an example, a roundtable was held in Boston where the public was invited to give early input about (already predetermined) energy policy. Peggy and I traveled to the city with a few other colleagues. We were separated and required to show IDs at the door for screening, - intimidating not inviting, by design.
We were assigned to different tables, and the facilitator at each table was supposed to lead a discussion and list the 3 most important topics to be brought forward to the larger group…But because everyone else at each table was completely on board for the smart meter agenda, even though health, fire safety, green-washing, privacy, hacking, cost issues, etc., were raised by the knowledgeable, informed public, none of the topics made it past the table or into reporting about the event.
Each table’s spokesperson forwarded the priorities of modernizing the grid, giving customers more control and more information about their energy usage, integrating renewables including EVs and solar which would require smart meters (not true), etc. Members of the public could not speak, other than through the table’s designated leader.
This process that controlled the supposed consumer-focused roundtable was an intentional, premeditated abuse of public trust, involving a large number of players, and it did not occur only in Boston.
The active control of the narrative included suppressing reported harm to health, preventing addressing what the European Environmental Agency deemed ‘Late Lessons from Early Warnings’ Ken Chamberlin of the Enviromental Health Trust coined the term ‘predatory delay,’
But it was worse than that. It was about complete indoctrination, manipulating the core values and ideals of advocates of energy efficiency, and casting informed activists as irresponsible, irrelevant members of the public who were creating unnecessary obstacles to clean energy investment.
It is a terrible thing to bear witness to so many people falling from grace, who may think that they are holding the higher moral ground, who believe that the ends justify the means, who themselves are caught in the spin cycle.
Weaponizing Ridicule
Smart meter injuries catapulted the term “tin foil hat” into public view. Like whack-a-mole, the industry has been pummeling the stories of harm, the emerging science, and the victims into oblivion.
Image Courtesy Flo Freshman
More Questions No Answers
Clare and I both questioned why smart meters were needed for premises that did not have solar and EVs. (Answer: surveillance, control, and greed, and more meters=more profit,) (Note Germany’s intelligent metering converted wisdom into reasoned policymaking. Germany is not installing transmitting modules on the homes of low energy consumers who do not have reasonable load to shift, and who are already leading an energy conservation lifestyle.)
The propaganda social engineering also made it seem as if consumers had no reasoning or memory, and needed to know how much electricity they were using every single time that they used the dryer…or to keep looking over and over again for consumption data for the teapot?
Our questions were ignored. The fact that pricing was going to be the out-of-control variable was downplayed. Also, the fact that the meters would play a central role in the technocratic surveillance and control grid. (It’s not as invisible at this point, and helps explain why so many downsides were ignored.)
Then Came Worcester
Exploitation of the public was even more transparent when National Grid held its multi-day “Green to Growth” summit in Worcester. National Grid wrote about the event in a June 2013 Department of Energy publication.
WORCESTER: “As part of the planning, the group identified the mix of roles/perspectives desired to be part of the visioning process. Each committee member identified specific people they knew (and provided contact details, which saved tremendous time and opened doors.) Those personal relationships and follow up were why 300 community leaders were willing to spend two workdays focused on the community’s energy future. The steering committee morphed into a Green2Growth Council.” page 18
To what extent were the majority of the 300 people involved in the manipulation/control of the community visioning process?
Voices of Experience: Insights on Smart Grid Customer Engagement
“The success of the Smart Grid will depend in part on consumers taking a more proactive role in managing their energy use.” - Voices of Experience
In accounting for the costs of the Green-to Growth summit, National Grid revealed that they had hired a consultant from Harvard to facilitate the flow of attitudes of the public, (predictive design) which of course led participants to the conclusion that they wanted more information about their electricity usage, with earnest youth groups creating artwork and slogans and participants talking about plastic bottles and other environmental issues. The leaders were not there for that.
Organizers of the summit never divulged to the participants that the City leadership had already agreed to host a smart meter pilot program involving 15,000 ratepayers - businesses and households. MA Department of Public Utilities employees submitted requests for reimbursement for their travel mileage to the event, but it is unclear what roles they played, including, for example, populating tables to control narratives.
An online search for the event now yields 2024 headlines: City plans its first ever Green Worcester Summit This city's throwing its first-ever Green Worcester Summit, themed "Building Resilience, Together," hosted by the City of Worcester Department of Sustainability & Resilience. These types of headlines, which inform AI, create and promote collective amnesia.
National Grid published this recent Worcester Community Update: After 14 years of serving the Worcester community, the National Grid Sustainability Hub on Main Street will officially close on Friday, May 30, 2025. This decision reflects our evolving approach to customer engagement. In recent years, we’ve successfully connected with customers through local events at libraries, community centers, and neighborhood venues, offering more personalized support through our Consumer Advocates and energy efficiency specialists. Although the Hub is closing, we remain deeply committed to the Worcester community.
The Sustainability Hub named the Propaganda Pub by Clare Donegan, was opened in a former bar near Clark University, and featured all manner of fancy tech, energy efficiency, touch screens and an EV charger, staffed by specially selected college student “Energy Ambassadors” who were supposed to ‘wear the face of the utility in the City’, thereby reducing opposition. One astute member of the community noted that customers didn’t need smart meters or a tech hub hosted by attractive students, they needed lower bills. How much did ratepayers pay over the last 14 years for the Hub, and how did it actually “serve” the Worcester community?
As opposition to the pilot grew in Worcester, once it became visible, with over 6,000 of a targeted 15,000 ratepayers refusing the meters, concern about disruption of the photo-op grand opening resulted in a police presence and the public being barred from attendance. (Only partnering politicians were able to visit the ice cream truck!)
Clare Donegan attended a subsequent industry event where smart meter proponents were discussing whether it was better to surcharge customers a punitive fee, or to bribe them with incentives. The audience broke out into peals of laughter at the comment, “The rats must smell the cheese.”
The hidden underbelly of the Worcester smart meter pilot, which was supposed to help determine whether or not the meters were a reasonable investment for ratepayers, should have been investigated for MA ratepayers prior to the MA DPU approving the meters…but this agenda is much larger than the Commonwealth, and the pilot was much larger than Worcester. (A fraud complaint about Navigant’s report of the pilot results was ignored by the Attorney General, Governor, and the Legislature.)
With its widely promoted “free opt out” “demonstrating Ngrid’s commitment to customer choice” prizes, gamification, relaunch, and shifting attempts to manufacture success, it was not an investigation, it was decision-based-evidence-making (as opposed to evidence-based decision making) for the entire smart meter agenda. With significant off-books expenses including the summit and grants to area colleges, it appears to have been designed to nullify all emerging issues regarding smart meters, with the active support of the state’s utility regulator, and beyond.
Especially after the other investor-owned utility in Massachusetts did not come out in favor of smart meters following its pilot (one reason- the low percentage of homes with central air) - further questions about who strong-armed who at Eversource remain unanswered. But Eversource’s early, honest disclosures revealed that it was the MA Dept of Public Utilities driving the smart meter bus, and not that the DPU was captured by the companies it was supposed to be regulating. The DPU was mixing and pouring that Kool-aide.
Eversource testified: “Air conditioners offer the greatest opportunity for residential load reductions, but the estimated central air conditioning (‘A/C’) penetration in Eversource’s service territory is only approximately 38 percent with 2 to 3 months of use per year, compared to higher penetrations in warmer states, such as Maryland, which have 60 to 80 percent A/C penetration rate thus offering the opportunity for more significant load reductions.” “Moreover, residential appliance data suggests that there is little discretionary load beyond the air conditioner. This is illustrated in Table 15 – Typical Load in 4-bedroom Home with Central A/C, which shows appliance usage in a typical 4-bedroom home. Central air-conditioning represents more than half of the household load. Lighting represents the second highest share. During peak hours, the air conditioning share of load will be even higher because lighting usage and other appliances are not likely to be in full use.
Read more here: Smart Meters Not Necessary to Modernize the Electric Grid Says a Major U.S. Utility | Smart Grid Awareness September 30, 2015 by SkyVision Solutions
National Grid’s 2025 MA Smart Meter Customer Information:
Fast forward from the early days of smart meter deployments in TX, CA and Maine, where the shortcomings were already apparent 15 years ago.
Now that smart meters are being deployed in Massachusetts, National Grid is not offering a “free opt out to demonstrate its commitment to customer choice” as it did in its pilot, for one thing.
“These smart meters incorporate proven, sophisticated technology which will improve service and reliability, while also giving you more control over your energy usage, faster, near real-time energy readings and an overall faster response.” “You’ll now have much more information about when and how you’re using energy, which can provide you with better insights to make decisions about managing your consumption, and increasing your energy efficiency, your way.
Smart Meters | National Grid
Eversource 2025 MA Smart Meter Customer Information
“empower you to make informed decisions about your energy use and modernize our electric grid”
Smart Meter Benefits
You only need to make these decisions about not using electricity when you need it when you have, for example, the Eversource demand charge for solar customers - which involved charging someone based on their single biggest half-hour of use across an entire month, for example, when a home health aide arrives to do laundry, vacuum, and run the dishwasher for a disabled low-income senior?
More Comments Submitted by Eversource Energy to the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission Back in 2015?
“Residential customers do not have the large discretionary load to shift in order to have a material impact on the … peak system load.”
“TVR Programs can negatively impact low-income customers and those customers who cannot shift load due to medical or other conditions.”
As noted by Sky Vision Solutions/Smart Grid Awareness, “A careful review [] exposes the false narrative of the smart grid industry that consumers will be able to save money by doing their laundry between midnight and 2 a.m. as an example. In fact, even if some consumers made this inconvenient and irrational behavior modification, the substantially higher rates paid during peak periods during the day for other the non-discretionary energy loads would not measurably be offset by these slight changes in overall energy usage patterns.”
Two Recent International News Items
From Australia; NSW energy watchdog bemoans ‘confusion, broken trust’ as smart meter rollout sputters - Stop Smart Meters Australia
An energy watchdog has sounded the alarm over the rollout of smart meters in Australia's most populous state, saying too many consumers are being hit with poor service and left worse off.
The New South Wales Energy and Water Ombudsman is the latest body to shine a light on shortcomings in the deployment of smart meters to millions of homes across the country.
The NSW Ombudsman noted with some disbelief that there had been a big jump in the number of complaints it received about estimated power bills.
This was despite the fact smart meters, which had been installed on almost half of all homes in NSW, were supposed to ensure timely, accurate meter readings that could be done remotely, eliminating the need for estimated bills.
The watchdog said there had also been a major increase in the number of complaints related to sudden, unexplained changes to people's electricity tariffs.
Such changes often involved customers being switched from flat rate prices, where they paid the same rate for a unit of power no matter when they bought it, to complex and dynamic charges.
Among these were time-of-use tariffs, in which customers paid more for power at peak times, and demand charges, which involved charging someone based on their single biggest half-hour of use across an entire month.
Ombudsman Janine Young also took aim at changes to metering that were supposed to give consumers more control over their consumption while allowing them to reduce their bills."The smart meter rollout aimed to increase flexibility and customer engagement with the energy market, by allowing customers to manage their energy usage and save money," Ms Young said.
By ABC energy reporter Daniel Mercer Abridged from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-07/nsw-energy-ombudsman-sounds-alarm-at-smart-meter-rollout/105140486
Norway: “the EU is trying to create a borderless power market based on free competition between producers.”
Einar Flydal: The Storting makes a sensationally bad decision today | I have something on my mind… (there is a yellow translate button in the bottom left corner.)
Today, Friday, June 13, the Norwegian Parliament decides to accept the EU's fourth energy market package. This day will go down in history as one of those days when the Storting sold out its heritage silver, and at the same time - under the guise of fine words about environmental protection, climate strategy and the need to show solidarity with Europe in difficult times - declared war on nature and on the foundation of the way we live and reside.
Also, see the image of “The propeller blades of wind turbines spread microplastics over large areas and cannot be recycled. Here they are buried. (USA)” at the link, and please ask, “When we bury these monstrosities, what prevents the microplastics from seeping into the water supply?”
There are a few inconvenient truths emerging:
World’s Richest 10% Linked to Two-Thirds of Global Warming Since 1990 if that is the narrative that concerns you
AI is poised to drive 160% increase in data center power demand (as AI in increasingly automatically, mindlessly being integrated into everyday computer use)
The ‘smart grid’ was not modernized to protect against solar activity or an EMP
Perhaps the most important:
“Smart meters were the single most common “trigger” for people newly developing intolerance to nonionizing radiation.”
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
“Maya Angelou's quote, 'When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time,' encapsulates a profound truth about human interactions. In its essence, the quote emphasizes the significance of paying attention to people's actions rather than being swayed by words or appearances. It serves as a reminder to trust our instincts and observations when forming opinions about others.”
14 years ago:
Opponents confront CPUC on Smart Meters - 6 minutes
Includes CPUC president Michael Peevey, who knew that harm was being inflicted by smart meters, Joshua Hart of Stop Smart Meters, & more. This was one of many hearings held in CA nearly 15 years ago (ignore the info about detecting frequencies).
Trust has been broken in more places than Australia, and the issues are not going away.
“Lives are being ruined, because of a meter.” - Janet Johnson testifying to the MA DPU
“Radiation without representation is tyranny.” - Pam Steinberg, Worcester MA