Oncor's Smart Meters Not So Smart for Customers

Imagine that your electricity company tells you that they are installing "smart readers" for your benefit. The purpose of the meters is to read your energy use and allow you to have more control over the amount of energy that you use. However, the meters fail to work properly and end up telling your electricity company that you use two or three times more energy than you really use. The result is that you receive a bill for over $1500 for one month’s worth of electricity. There is not much you can do other than pay it because the electricity company claims that the meters read your energy correctly.

This horrible scenario isn’t fiction. It is exactly what happened to customers of Oncor, the electricity distribution company in Texas. The company is dealing with a class action lawsuit related to the issue because customers could not believe that they were being charged such exorbitant bills for mistakes in the readings of the Smart Meters. In spite of these problems, smart meter rollouts continue. AEP Texas is about to launch their Smart Meters in Abilene.

So what are smart meters? These electricity meters are designed to read electricity usage with more detail than traditional meters. For example, they may read electricity use every hour, allowing electric companies to offer reduced rates during off-peak hours. Theoretically, this gives customers more control over their electricity bills, allowing them to take actions to control their electricity rates.

The class action lawsuit with Oncor (and another similar one in the state of California) suggests that these meters don’t necessarily work properly. In fact, individuals involved in the lawsuit have gone so far as to suggest that Oncor intentionally installed meters in low-income areas to take advantage of a population that isn’t likely to sue. Whether or not this is true is uncertain. Oncor denies the claims and says that their smart meters were not faulty but rather that the individuals in question increased their own energy use dramatically and were charged accordingly.

What is certain, however, is that these people are being charged a lot of money for electricity and something needs to be done about it. This may mean holding companies like Oncor accountable, it may mean switching to a low cost Texas electricity provider in the area, it may mean reducing personal energy use in the home or it may mean a combination of all of these things.