Saving money with smart meters: the Liberal promise

On April 19, 2004, the Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, said in a speech to the Ontario Legislature, “Smart meters, together with more flexible pricing, would allow Ontarians to save money if they run appliances in off-peak hours.”

   A few days ago Rosemary Leclaire, CEO of the Ontario Energy Board (OEB),  delivered the following message in her speech to the  Ontario Energy Association:  “We are using data supplied by a number of utilities to analyze the impact of time-of-use pricing on peak consumption. Early results show that residential customers are cutting their consumption during high price periods and shifting their peak usage until after 7 PM.”

   The two quotes are years apart but are related.  Did we really save money by shifting usage as McGuinty claimed or was that simply political hyperbole?   Since his speech electricity rates have risen 65% and delivery rates even more.  Then, add the HST.

   The Ministry of Energy (MOE) tells us we can save moneywith smart meters:  “Shift electricity use to off-peak periods. With smart meters and time-of-use pricing, you can save money by switching some of your energy use to mid- and off-peak hours when electricity prices are lower.”

   Well, here’s the truth: the money we can save does not come, as McGuinty and the MOE suggest,  from simply adjusting our use of appliances in off-peak hours. No, to really save money, you have to leave the province for at least five months and  head south where electricity rates are much lower (See the EIA reported  all-in electricity rates here.).

   This sad truth was revealed to me in an e-mail sent by someone with an interest in my writings about the Ontario electricity sector.  He described how he and his wife save money by moving to Florida for five months every year.  In fact, he said, their travel costs are paid for with the money saved by leaving Ontario.   Here is what he said.

February in Florida the coolest month I used electric heat, electric stove, and electric water heater, plus TV, microwave, lights, computer, radio etc.  I used 479 KW at a gross cost of $48.89. That's 10 cents per kW. Meanwhile in Ontario my house at 9 degrees C with natural gas using fans, fridge on, sump pump.  Telephone and clocks on stove, microwave and radio getting power. I used 133 kW for a cost of $59.64 in an empty house. That's 44 cents a kW. When the house is occupied I use about 700 kW per month. Higher in the cooler months, I would estimate much higher in the cold ones. In April- May 2013, I used 752 kW for a gross charge of 176.00 or .234 cents a kW.
So if my winter costs were the same as April - May, my five-and-a-half-month cost is $968.  My five-and-a-half-month Florida cost averages $30.00 or $165 US.  I don't really know what my February bill would be if I stayed home--I can only assume it would be more than $176.00  If I do the Florida trip in one night, my expenses down and back are around $500 for gas, motel and food.

Florida is not the cheapest state for US electricity rates (it’s 16% under the US average) but the foregoing does highlight the cost of electricity in Ontario versus much of the US East Coast.   Those states are ones that Ontario often competes with for jobs. 

   Curiously, a side issue of the Florida story is that the principal provider of electricity is Florida Light and Power (FLP) a subsidiary of Juno, FL-based NextEra.  The company has several contracts with the Ontario Power Authority for industrial wind projects and plans to develop 600 MW in Ontario.

   One can only conclude that the Ontario Government's handling of the energy portfolio in Ontario has driven jobs south, attracted foreign companies looking for big payoffs, granted those companies carte blanche to kill, harm and harass our birds, bats and turtles, reduced our property values, caused health problems in rural communities, and, yes, driven our electricity bills up. 

   In the end it appears that McGuinty spoke the truth--he just didn't tell us we would have to leave our province for five months to “save money”. 

Parker Gallant,

September 18, 2013

PS:  NextEra contributed the maximum amount ($9,300) to the Ontario Liberal Party in both 2011 and 2012.

The opinions expressed are those of the writer and not necessarily Wind Concerns Ontario policy.

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Veteran battles Hydro One over "smart" meters

Those of us who have to deal with Hydro One know how heavy-handed the power supplier can be. Here's what's happening when one Ontario resident decided to stand up to them.

Veteran battles Hydro One over meter

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By Simon Kent ,Toronto Sun

First posted: Sunday, September 15, 2013 03:15 PM EDT | Updated: Sunday, September 15, 2013 09:19 PM EDT

Let’s start with a quick quiz.
Do you think your home is your castle, protected under common law as yours and yours alone?
Further, do you think you hold the right to say who enters your property and the terms under which they do?
Answer “yes” to both questions?
Maybe it’s time to think again.
As Ontario householders are finding, utility company Hydro One reserves absolute privilege to enter your private property whenever a representative sees fit.The reason they want access is to install new electronic smart meters, now being rolled out across the province as part of a multi-million dollar program funded by the taxpayers of Ontario.
For various legitimate reasons, including health, privacy and safety, many people are opposed to the forced installation of this new wireless metering system. But they’re discovering they have no way of seeking an exemption or opting out.
Like Second World War veteran Russell Irwin. The 91-year-old says the company replaced his old meter with a new digital version directly against his wishes and without permission.
This is what happened to Irwin.
“The Hydro people first came one day and we told them to get out and stay out,” Irwin said. “The next Sunday morning they snuck back in and put the Smart meter in anyway.“They said they’ve got every right to do these things but they should have asked first whether we want the new smart meter or not.
“The answer would have been obviously no.”
Mr. Irwin has since refused to pay any more bills until the old meter is returned and the company offers an apology.Hydro One’s response has been to inform him to be prepared to have his power cut off by Tuesday.
Irwin is ready for a long battle with the utility giant and his personal history reveals why he is determined not to give in.
It’s just not in his nature.
The former Canadian Grenadier Guard served as a tank driver in the Second World War as a member of the 22nd Canadian Armoured Regiment (CAR), a unit of 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division.
He deployed to Normandy in July 1944 and from that time until VE Day on May 8, 1945, was with 22 CAR in battles around the Falaise Pocket in France, in Belgium, the Netherlands and finally across the Rhine.On his return, Irwin continued to serve but in a different capacity. He lived in Toronto, raised a family and dedicated 35 years of his life saving others as a firefighter paramedic before retiring to his farm at Orangeville.
The last thing he says he wants to do is spend his remaining years fighting the Hydro, but as his son-in-law Dwayne Huxted explains, he has no choice.“Since the installation of the new meter, two of my father-in-law’s computers have stopped working while the Internet has been disconnecting regularly,” Huxted said. “None of that was happening prior.He also has had a noticeable increase in intensity of ringing in the ears and balance problems, both of which were originally attributed to his war service.”
Complaints over the forced installation and impending power cut off have been filed with the Ombudsman, Hydro One and the Ontario Energy Board but to no avail; the utility remains committed to installing the meters over any consumer resistance.Around 1.4 million wireless meters have been placed on homes and apartments throughout the province. The aim of the McGuinty government initiative was to help reduce energy consumption by showing consumers how to save money in off-peak hours. Smart meters for smart usage is the claim.
Opponents claim the new meters don’t just monitor their usage, but have the potential in the future to restrict or cut power supply to individual appliances as well as collect information on usage to be shared without the consent or knowledge of the consumer.For its part Hydro One, refused a request to reveal whether or not direct permission was sought to enter Mr. Irwin’s rural estate to fit the new meter.
A spokesman offered this response to the inquiry.“The Electricity Act (Section 40) and Hydro One’s Conditions of Service permit us to maintain and replace our meter at our customers’ premises. A customer does not need to be home for the installation to take place.”
Not good enough, said Dwayne Huxted. He is worried that his father-in-law will be taken off grid Tuesday and faces a winter without power.He also maintains that repeated requests for Hydro One to send a copy of the original contact had been denied, making it almost impossible to determine their legal standing.
“We say the meter was installed without consent, it is an invasion of privacy, it has the ability to collect information about us and our home that is ours alone and then it is communicated wirelessly and possibly on-sold to any number of anonymous organizations or corporations.
“It also looks like needless Hydro One bullying of a war veteran who is simply standing up for his rights and getting bulldozed by a vast, anonymous state service provider for his troubles.
“It looks bad because it is bad.”
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