It started in California, this year. About a month ago, when some customers removed their Smart Meter and replaced it with an analog by a liscensed professional electrician. So, this was done properly in accordance with technical requirements, in other words, money was spent to have a professional do the job right. This isn’t about getting electricity without paying for it.
Wendy Sarsfield, a representative from the public utility PG&E, kept insisting that saftey was the main issue for which power was not restored to the homeowners. Upon hearing this, Board Member after Board Member seemed to come up with a viable, workable solution, but it was always unacceptable to the PG&E Rep. After several minutes where the PG&E Rep began sounding like a broken record while refusing to come to any reasonable solution about restoring power to people’s homes (One of which was just to add people to the delay list and reinstall an analog meter until the California Public Utilites Commission-CPUC- finished creating an opt out program), one Board Member cut to the chase……
Get ready, new home construction is expected to have these installed as a matter of course. But when they come after your existing home to “upgrade” your meter – what are you going to do?
Read that whole updated article at GatewayPundit and watch the entire video to see the play-by-play (around 5 minute mark) by everyone and the PG&E representative.
Do you really want the power company to turn off your A/C during the summer and heat during the winter? Because that, and the fact that there are not new power generation plants planned for construction, is what they intend to solve their problem of providing enough energy for everyone’s consumption.
UPDATE: In British Columbia (Canada), it appears their smart meters will track power usage against specific devices by category. How about that. Forget about privacy – even in your own home, government – local or otherwise – intrudes deeper into your lives.
Daniel McAndrew 
“Heh. Good one, J.M.”
Daniel, you seem to know something very few others know.
Hello, Fred, And welcome.
Well, thanks for that vote of confidence but, as an engineer, it is my job to forecast & plan for any eventualities. In other words the cause and effects when making decisions.
Yeah, I saw this coming. Awhile back, BGE here in MD, had a program to install remote switches on our heat pumps and would credit us some $$ during a portion of the summer and winter so they could control our cooling & heating. Notice with smart meters, this may go away.
But more striking, some years back during a particularly nasty winter – BGE actually switched off power in certain regions of the state – rolling blackouts – not brownouts. Who’s to say this won’t happen again?
What’s more, we pay for uninterrupted power service – up until now with the introduction of this smart meter technology. I haven’t heard anyone talk about that little tidbit.