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Boooost to chip89
Anon
2014-Jul-6 9:14 pm
to chip89
Re: [Electrical] Smartmeter dead by power surge.quote: Low-tech but highly reliable: NJ meter readers still make the rounds
And a necessity in New Jersey, where most electric, gas and water meters still require people to visit the locations and enter updated usage numbers to calculate monthly bills. It is a model that has remained relatively unchanged for more than a century.
The alternative, two-way smart meters, can remotely calculate individual gas, water and electric usage, send a signal when a customers power goes out, and in some cases, help cut energy consumption and manage peak demand.
But the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities and the states ratepayer advocate havent supported the technology, whose system-wide installation would run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, a cost that would get passed on to customers.
The state Division of Rate Counsel, which represents consumers in utility rate cases, maintains that human meter readers are still cheaper and more effective than their high-tech counterparts.
Meter readers serve an important function, said Stefanie Brand, Rate Counsel director. They are not obsolete.
Because utilities dont yet have smart grid technology that would allow for system-wide communication, many of the potential smart meter benefits would go unrealized, she said.
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