"Unconscionable practices of major utility providers against their customers: 'Forced to pay more for our own demise'"

Smart meters are definitely playing a part

The Cool Down newsletter describes itself as ‘Your guide to a cleaner cooler future.’ On Feb.22, The Cool Down published a story by Laurelle Stelle:

Report exposes unconscionable practices of major utility providers against their customers: 'Forced to pay more for our own demise'

I wish I could say that the article indicates that The Cool Down has gotten wise to the adverse impacts of various energy conservation initiatives that are causing harm to human health and the environment, flying under the guise of sustainability.

This could include recognizing the smart grid and smart meters and pollution of the grid and the environment, caused by inadequately engineered renewable and clean energy technologies, as a force multiplier of harm.

The concern that The Cool Down referenced in their article: massive profits, utility shut-offs, and building methane plants

The full title of the Cool Down article is Report exposes unconscionable practices of major utility providers against their customers: 'Forced to pay more for our own demise' "[They] will prioritize profits."

The article covers a recent report by the Center for Biological Diversity about sky-rocketing revenues vs. power shut offs, juxtaposed with the utilities continuing to invest in methane gas plants.

Utilities and regulators have been fond of informing ratepayers that if they move out of their premises, the power can now be shut off remotely due to the wonders of the two -way communication between the smart meter and the utility.

Those whose math only focuses on carbon are quick to point out that the technology eliminates what was once a necessary truck roll.

What they are not fond of disclosing is that the remote off switch for the two-way communication meter introduces a hacking potential.

They are also not fond of disclosing that the roll-out of smart meters allows utilities to remotely cut off power for non-payment, and that non-payment results from installing technologies that make electricity more expensive - to pay for the meters and infrastructure and the data centers that will store information about when a consumer turned on the lights in the evening 5 years ago, (even though utilities already have profiles and know full well which homes are occupied or not during the day and night, and who has which appliances.)

The Center for Biological Diversity Called Out Six Utility Companies

“The Center for Biological Diversity called out six companies: Georgia Power, DTE Energy, Duke Energy, Ameren Corporation, Pacific Gas & Electric, and Arizona Public Service. Between them, these companies made $10 billion in profit last year, so they're not exactly hurting. $3.5 billion of those revenues came from rate hikes between 2023 and 2027 — that's how much more they're charging customers. Meanwhile, they shut off power at least 662,000 times in 2024, over 400,000 of those during a summer in which much of the U.S. experienced record temperatures. All the unpaid bills that led to those shutoffs could have been covered by a mere 2% of the nearly $7 billion these companies paid out as shareholder dividends. At the same time, these companies are damaging the environment by investing in more methane gas plants, with 22 more projects planned through 2033.” - The Cool Down

Link to the press release: Report: Utilities Drive Energy Unaffordability, Climate Emergency While Shareholders Rake in Billions - Center for Biological Diversity

Link to the report: Powerless in the United States 34 pages

Dataset To compile the data for this report, the authors reviewed available disconnection data for all six utility companies and the primary states they operate in. Cumulative data were compiled by combining 2024 findings with data from our earlier reports in this series. This included Georgia, Michigan, North and South Carolina, Illinois, Missouri, California, and Arizona. Duke Energy’s shutoff data in Ohio, Indiana, Florida, and Kentucky were excluded because they are less accessible and, according to our previous report, the majority of the utility companies’ shutoffs occur in the Carolinas.178 Disconnection data was retrieved by reviewing state utility dockets and, for DTE in Michigan, submitting public information requests.

Courtesy Powerless in the United States

Which of the Six Utilities Shutting Off Electricity for Non-payment Deployed Smart Meters?

Has Georgia Power deployed smart meters?
https://psc.ga.gov/about-the-psc/consumer-corner/electric/general-information/smart-meter-qa/ Q. When did Georgia Power receive Commission approval to replace its mechanical meters with Smart Meters? A. The Georgia Public Service Commission approved Georgia Power’s request to replace its 2.5 million mechanical meters with new digital AMI or smart meters in 2007. As part of a six year rollout, Georgia Power will install a smart meter for all customers located on its distribution system.

Has DTE deployed smart meters?
https://www.dteenergy.com/us/en/residential/service-request/rates/advanced-meters.html#accordion-7087f97052-item-28e1a85e6b We are nearing the completion of our smart meter installations. If our existing meter at your home or business has not been upgraded, you will be hearing from us soon

Has Duke Energy deployed smart meters?
3 benefits of your new smart meter | Duke Energy | illumination In 2021, over 8 million Duke Energy customers will have smart meters. This year, nearly every Duke Energy customer will have a smart meter. Since 2012, the company has been working to install 8.3 million across six states. Smart meters provide you with more information about your energy use and new tools to help you save money. They’re an essential part of a smarter grid and help support a cleaner energy future.

Has Ameren deployed smart meters?
Smart Meters | Ameren Missouri - Ameren Missouri The current Automated Meter Reading (AMR) meters are reaching the end of their lifespan. The Smart Energy Plan includes provisions to upgrade meters to Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), which provide customers with more convenience, choice and control. What can a smart meter do for me?
Convenience – Enjoy faster connection when you move or start service, and even more reliable energy thanks to smart technology that can detect an outage quickly.
Choice – Choose from expanded rate options, including off-peak/on-peak rates, that can help you save when you shift your energy usage to off-peak times.
Control – With more precise energy usage information provided by your smart meter, Energy Manager. Log into your Account Dashboard to access this new usage insights tool that helps you better manage your energy habits – and potentially save on your bill. Your energy usage information always stays secure.

Has Pacific Gas & Electric deployed smart meters?
https://www.pge.com/assets/pge/docs/about/corporate-responsibility-and-sustainability/PGE-EPIC-Project-2.21.pdf (unreadable0 https://www.pge.com/en/save-energy-and-money/energy-saving-programs/smartmeter.html Get more reliable service SmartMeter™ and Meter-Connector provide communication between PG&E and the grid. This two-way communication allows us to quickly identify outages and resolve other service problems, typically without visiting your home or business. Learn more about how this technology works. More control You can get an online, detailed history of your energy use and costs, up to the previous day. View your hourly electric and daily gas and electric consumption, and then compare your energy use to last week or even last year. You can use this valuable information to make smart energy choices. Get detailed information about your energy use.

Has Arizona Public Service deployed smart meters?
AMI: APS to install half a million advanced smart meters On October 25, Landis+Gyr and Arizona Public Service (APS) said they are expanding their contract, originally signed in 2015, to include additional AMI services plus the installation of an additional 500,000 advanced meters over the next seven years. APS, which serves 1.3 million homes and businesses in Arizona, began deploying Landis+Gyr’s Gridstream AMI infrastructure in 2016 and has used the network to support advanced metering and distribution automation technology across its service territory, it said in a press release.

(I already knew the answer, but I wanted to see what the internet had to say.)

Another translation of the article’s headline "Unconscionable practices of major utility providers against their customers: 'Forced to pay more for our own demise'" is that utility customers have been forced to pay surcharges for a control grid that has in fact caused an enormous disparity between ratepayers with low electric consumption vs. those with loads that can be shifted in response to price signals; such as a home EV charger, central air, and a swimming pool, and that the bills have become unmanageable for a growing portion of the population, in association with access to an essential service.

To put it another way, instead of simply focusing on the need to manage the small percentage of homes with larger implications for supply and demand, for example those with EVs and solar, the public was gaslighted into enabling utilities to charge them to finance a surveillance grid with profound capacities for transferring and concentrating wealth; and already manifesting massive human rights abuses including directly causing disability in a portion of the population.

Duke Energy says: Smart meters provide you with more information about your energy use and new tools to help you save money. They’re an essential part of a smarter grid and help support a cleaner energy future.

Consumers who supposedly ‘want more information about their energy use’ are not subject to appliances with a mind of their own that need policing, or to appliances that will vary in their energy demands.

What they are subjected to is pricing that may vary by the time of day or overall demands on the grid, with utilities now seeking to add nuclear energy to accommodate the 24-7 demands of AI data centers.

The “tools” that will enable customers to save money are derived from pricing schemes, that again benefit the heaviest users, after all consumers pay MORE for the smart grid. Numerous clean -energy technologies have not been adequately designed or vetted for health impacts, from CFL lighting to variable speed motors.

When Ameren says one of the benefits is Choice – Choose from expanded rate options, including off-peak/on-peak rates, that can help you save when you shift your energy usage to off-peak times. Control – With more precise energy usage information provided by your smart meter, Energy Manager they seem to be implying that without a device, a consumer can’t tell if the dishwasher is on.

When PG&E says: This two-way communication allows us to quickly identify outages and resolve other service problems, typically without visiting your home or business. Learn more about how this technology works. More control You can get an online, detailed history of your energy use and costs, up to the previous day. View your hourly electric and daily gas and electric consumption, and then compare your energy use to last week or even last year. You can use this valuable information to make smart energy choices. Get detailed information about your energy use.

Outages can be and have been detected at the pole. APS (Arizona) also claims that smart meters enable faster storm notifications. But they sent this message to their customers in January 2025: Outage Center Download the free APS mobile app or visit us online to see safety tips, view our interactive outage map, or to report an outage. Both Maine and Virginnia experienced storm related grid failures, indicating that the meters have not made the grid more reliable.

PG&E says, More control You can get an online, detailed history of your energy use and costs, up to the previous day. View your hourly electric and daily gas and electric consumption, and then compare your energy use to last week or even last year. You can use this valuable information to make smart energy choices. Comparing energy usage to last week or even last year is a useless metric when weather plays such an enormous role in impacting consumption and is beyond the control of the consumer.

Many consumers, if asked if they wanted to pay utilities to provide this data and these pricing comparisons, would decline the offer.

Volts: “The Massachusetts utility regulator trying to orchestrate a shift away from gas”: Five Tiers of Rates Based on Income?

Volts, with 79,000 subscribers, describes itself as a podcast devoted to leaving fossil fuels behind. On Feb. 21, Volts published an article, The Massachusetts utility regulator trying to orchestrate a shift away from gas A conversation with James Van Nostrand, chair of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities.

In this episode, I'm joined by James Van Nostrand. He is the top utility regulator in Massachusetts, the first state to explicitly tell gas utilities to plan their own phase-out. We explore this complex transition, including the fate of existing gas infrastructure, the potential of networked geothermal as an alternative, and protections for both workers and ratepayers.

David Roberts: Before we leave behind the subject of rates, another tool that I think the clean energy world has come to see as sort of key in this battle is the fact that electricity is worth more at different times of day and in different geographical areas. Temporally and geographically, it varies, but rates tend to be historically flat, volumetric, not reflecting that differing value. Have you encouraged your utilities to implement time or place varying rates, sort of more dynamic rates? Is that on your radar?

James Van Nostrand: Definitely. It requires advanced metering infrastructure and smart meters, which we're going to be rolling out for Eversource over the next three years and National Grid over the next three years. So, four years from now, that advanced metering infrastructure should be in place across the state with smart meters. Then we can roll out the time varying rates so we can send customers those price signals, and then because that's going to help us manage the peaks, right? That's going to help us avoid unnecessary transmission distribution infrastructure. If we can send strong price signals to customers through time varying rates and then expect them to manage their loads or, you know, there's lots of products out there to help customers manage their loads seamlessly.

But that's really tied into the affordability issue, is time varying rates and managing the loads.

David Roberts: You know, there's the whole supply management side of things, but then there's the whole demand side of things management side of things.

James Van Nostrand: Definitely.

David Roberts: And that requires those smart meters, that requires that knowledge of that granular knowledge of what's going on in there. So, actually, Governor Healey signed a law in November, I believe, that among other things, called for a statewide depository of this information from these advanced meters. Do you know when that goes live, that data repository? Because, you know, a lot of utilities — this is something we've podcasted here on Volts about also — a lot of utilities have this information, but they just don't share it or won't share it in a useful format. They're very proprietary over it. What's the status of that?

James Van Nostrand: Data access is an issue that we're looking at because I think we're going to be spending a lot of money on the advanced metering infrastructure and the smart meters to give customers those pricing options. A lot of customers just don't want to spend the time messing around with it. They need some interface. Right. A third party is going to come in there and say, "I'm going to do all these things with your thermostat or just do these things to smart-charge your car in the middle of the night without you having to do that yourself." But that means all this stuff needs to fit together, and it's interoperability, it's digitalization. So, we're looking very closely at that because as we're spending these massive amounts of dollars on advanced metering infrastructure, we want to make sure the utilities are taking advantage of the latest technology. So, when these products are rolled out, that will help customers manage their energy costs. These things all work together. But, data access is a big deal. And, having been on the utility side of the fence for a number of years, I mean it's confidential customer-specific information, and we don't like to let that out. []

James Van Nostrand: [] the 2022 climate bill required the electric distribution companies to file electric sector modernization plans or ESMPs. Those were filed with us last January. We had seven months to look at them. That's where the electric distribution companies are telling us, "This is all the additional T&D infrastructure we're going to need to build in order to accommodate EV charging, electric heat pumps, integration of new solar and battery storage." So that's pretty much what those dockets show; the load will pretty much double by 2050. It's because of electrification. That's what we're doing to decarbonize. We need to have electric heat pumps, we need to have EV chargers. The electric distribution company is saying, "Here's the stuff we're going to have to build in order to be able to accommodate that plus integration of solar and battery storage facilities."

[] about 13 months ago, we started what we call the Energy Burden docket, which is docket 24-15, where we looked at: can we design our rates to make it more affordable for the varying levels of income that we have in the state? A number of states have a percentage of income payments. A number of states have tier discounts. So, we opened a proceeding to look at that, because the way it was for most utilities is you either get the discount or you don't. The discount is 32%, 40%. And what National Grid did in the case that we just approved this last fall was they implemented tiered discounts, five tiers, basically. So, the lower the income, the higher the discount. The higher the income, the lower the discount. And that's one solution that I think has a lot of promise.

- The Massachusetts utility regulator trying to orchestrate a shift away from gas

A Better Idea? The Low Usage/Low Consumption Class of Ratepayers Vince Welage: Ohio, Lack of Legislative Oversight Results in High Energy Bills

Volunteer citizen researcher Vince Welage in Ohio has been investigating the economic impact of various fixed charges and riders being added to utility bills that create a disparity for low usage consumers. Especially when combined with the impact of the punitive smart meter “opt out” charges, the economic impacts are overwhelming for many households. The statistical analysis by Vince indicates that consumers who use less energy are clearly subsidizing heavier users. Fixed charges comprise a much larger portion of the overall bill.

See also: Vince Welage: "Ohio Utility Energy Disparity; Charges Lack Conditional Exemptions" "Current smart grid billing schemes are creating a disparity among ratepayers" "Consumers with lower levels of energy consumption are subsidizing customers with higher consumption" Germany has a made the policy decision not to install a transmitting meter on homes with low levels of energy consumption, as a foundation of its intelligent metering plan.

Katie Singer: “Who defines “sustainable?”

Katie Singer, author of Electronic Silent Spring, asks, “Who should have authority to approve or deny proposals to build new wind, solar and battery facilities? State regulators? Local governments? Some combination of the two? What criteria should anyone use to approve or deny a permit to build a facility?” As Massachusetts aggressively sets its sites on “electrification and decarbonization,” it has failed to calculate the cradle-to-grave costs or health and environmental impacts of its policy decisions including promoting solar invertors, wind, EV chargers, smart meters, variable speed motors and other so-called ‘clean energy’ technologies.

Tobacco Science for Smart Meters

In addition, the opinion of a mercenary tobacco scientist has formed the foundation of safety claims for smart meters. in many states, including Massachusetts. This will not end well.

See Freedom of Information Act email exchange where the DPU solicits tobacco scientist Peter Valberg's testimony (refers to Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities)

See also the 2015 ethics complaint about the National Grid Worcester Smart Meter pilot filed with the Attorney General, Governor, and the Legislature, and ignored.

Center for Biological Diversity - Just and Reasonable

Surcharging health-vulnerable ratepayers a ‘smart meter opt out fee’ to prevent harm caused by unsafe technology choices, including adding wireless and powerline technologies to the grid, is not “just and reasonable.”

Pole Attachment Hearings and Covert Utility Work that Increases Exposures to Radiofrequency Radiation and Polluted Power Quality, in MA and Beyond?

Utilities across the country have been covertly updating the grid with wireless antennas and other technologies in order to implement the smart grid. Residents should be on the look-out for utility work and pole attachment hearings.

Live links at: Hilltown Health

Opposition-with-Exhibits.pdf

Second-Opposition-Letter-with-Exhibits.pdf

“National Grid intends to increase its electrical transmission capabilities in Charlemont and the surrounding towns. In furtherance of this goal, National Grid has started a project to install 263 new utility poles. The new poles will all be larger than the existing and aesthetically more utilitarian. Most of the new poles will be replacing smaller existing poles but some of the new poles are not 2 replacements, they will be in new locations. All of the new poles will be located within the layouts of the Town’s roadways, including the portion of Avery Brook Road in front of my clients’ property. The road layout property is owned by the citizens of Charlemont.”

Direct Harm

The costs of accommodating those citizens who already recognize the health damage caused by inadequately regulated utility-telecom ventures will increase as more ratepayers are harmed.

This has been caused directly by malfeasance on the part of the entire telecom-utility industry and its regulators, who, instead of investigating and addressing reports of injury and working to develop safe technology, invested in propaganda, denial, ridicule, and product defense by mercenary scientists.

The business case and claims about smart meters and a smart grid requires urgent review demanded by the public. “These are unconscionable practices of major utility providers and regulators against their customers: 'Forced to pay more for our own demise.' Methane gas plants and fossil fuels are not the most dangerous concerns, - it’s the unhinged, and increasingly inhumane clean energy community, in urgent need of a reset.