Smart Meter Deployment May be a Utility’s Legal Right

Thursday, 17 November 2011 19:28

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According to a think piece published on the YourHoustonNews website by Catherine Dominguez, consumers may not have any legal standing to refuse smart meters—or any measuring device their local utility chooses to use.  The issue boils down to legalese contained in the contract homeowners agree to when establishing their electric service,

In the article, Domingues quotes attorney Eric Thiergood  of The Strong Firm PC, who explains that a typical power utility contract includes wording that indicates the customer agrees to let the utility install equipment that will monitor usage for billing purposes.

Thiergood explains, “You are specifically agreeing to allow the utility company to use various measuring means. It’s dictated by your contract.” Because of that, Thiergood suggests home-owners trying to prevent the deployment of smart meters may not have any legal weight behind their position. “It’s not a matter of whether the utility company has the right to install them. “It’s a contractual issue.”

But even those anti-meter consumers who acknowledge the law is on the utility’s side still look for ways to work around the contract. For example, a post on the RefuseSmartMeter.com web site urges homeowners to file small claims suits against their local utility.

While the post acknowledges the utility companies can afford to litigate thousands of Small Claims Court cases, it also says, “the logistics of doing it would be a nightmare for them. They will have to respond to each and every Small Claims Court case, and when a case comes to trial in Small Claims Court they will have to send an agent or employee to court to oppose the case. Just to organize all those responses and people will be a huge logistical burden, even for a big utility company. What’s more, it would give the utility company a public black eye, and they are wary of that kind of publicity.”

Such a course of action would of course come with a cost and those costs would then likely be passed on to consumers by way if increased energy costs.

Unfortunately many of these anti-smartmeter websites do not follow the same rules when investigating and researching news stories, they tend to be weighted and manipulated in order to form a coherent train of thought, albeit at the cost of the truth.  Another recent article claimed that PG&E had backed down and was removing meters en masse due to health risks.  What the article failed to mention was that this was a unique case whereby PG&E were directed by the CPUC at a public meeting to put back an analog meter into one specific customer's home, the story however reads that this was some how a landslide victory and evidence of their arguments, when clearly this was an isolated incident.

Companies like PG&E have put on record that they support a resolve that will address the concerns of customers not wanting a SmartMeter, and hope to basically "get on with the work".

This however will be an ongoing issue and while we all surely sympathise with those who feel affected by the deployment of smart meters we do also hope for a resolve in order to move on to create a grid for the 21st century.