A group of Alamo Heights residents who question the safety and security of smart meters deployed by CPS Energy had hoped to halt deployment of the digital devices in the municipality, but their push to amend the City’s Charter to allow residents to opt out of smart meters for free has failed – for now.
CPS Energy customers everywhere already can opt out of smart meter installation. That decision, however, comes with a one-time fee to install an Offsite Meter Read meter and a $20 monthly reading fee each time CPS Energy has to dispatch a meter reader to the residence. Low income customers can apply for a reduced rate. Residents don’t have to pay the one-time fee to opt out if they notify CPS Energy before the smart meter is installed.
Alamo Heights residents requesting the vote at the Monday evening City Council meeting wanted the City Charter to state, after a public vote, that a property owner can refuse installation or demand removal of a digital and/or radio frequency transmitting metering device without paying a fee. The state’s deadline for calling a May special election is Friday, 5 p.m., and Alamo Heights officials said they are not prepared to schedule such a vote. The publicly-owned energy utility is scheduled to deploy smart meters to Alamo Heights residential customers starting this spring.
Smart meter opponents could try to get the issue on November’s ballot.
CPS Energy’s four-year program to install a San Antonio-area smart grid includes plans to deploy 740,000 smart meters to replace older, analog meters. The automated meters would collect detailed information on a property owner’s electricity use and transmit it to the utility via radio frequencies. CPS Energy officials have said this will enable the utility to identify and fix power outages faster, and reduce expenses by eliminating regular visits by meter readers, among other positives.
A group of local residents, including Susan Straus, sister of Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, have repeatedly expressed their health and privacy concerns with officials from Alamo Heights and CPS Energy since the City of San Antonio-owned utility began planning last year for the long-term installation of smart meters. Some residents say incidents and research from around the United States and Canada lead them to believe the meters are a fire risk, unsafe with radio frequencies usage, and even a form a personal intrusion.
Late last summer, critics managed to persuade Alamo Heights officeholders to request – and ultimately receive – an installation delay from CPS Energy. Now, with reports that the utility would begin meter replacement sooner than expected, Susan Straus launched a petition drive in early February to win a charter amendment election. On Feb. 13, she submitted the petition with 443 signatures. City staff validated 373 of the signatures.
Before the City Council could entertain the notion of voting Monday to set the special election, City Attorney Mike Brenan threw up a caution flag. CPS Energy recently wrote Brenan, saying Alamo Heights lacked authority in “dictating” to the utility how it provides energy to customers. Utility officials warned that calling such a special election, especially if the proposal were to pass, could lead to a court challenge
Council members asked Brenan to seek an opinion from the state attorney general’s office on whether it is permissible for the city to consider a special election of this magnitude.
Disheartened by the decision, some audience members pleaded for city officials to at least ask CPS Energy for an extended delay in local installation the smart meters. Mayor Louis Cooper said he would communicate that concern to CPS Energy, and ask the utility to clarify how property owners could opt out of the smart meter program.
*Featured/top image: Landis + Gyr smart meters. Photo courtesy of CPS Energy.
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I don’t know about anyone else but… IDGAF….
The intense fear some people have of any kind of progress, especially technological, is astounding.
It certainly appears that you GAF on some level, Beto, as you obviously felt strongly enough about this issue to comment!
Odds are that they are genuinely afraid of smart meters, but the fear more likely has to do with demand pricing than electromagnetic energy. It’s pretty clear how to opt out. Request to opt out and pay the monthly fee to send someone to your home to read the meter.
Kevin, the issue is wanting to keep the analog meters rather than OMR or AMI meters. To better familiarize yourself with the types of meters and the differences, there is a chart at http://www.cpsenergy.com/files/OMR_Meters_Bill_Insert.pdf .
Mr. Perez you should read it too. It does require an understanding of technology, and if there is anything you don’t understand, don’t be afraid to ask. 😉
Can’t wait to have mine installed. I am more concerned about the CPS workers coming in my yard than any issues with the meter.
What hard costs are involved when CPS does not install a smart meter? If there are no hard costs, let’s rename it a “penalty”– like Obamacare does.
There IS a monthly, recurring cost to NOT have the “standard” meter – as CPS calls it. The monthly cost to NOT have it currently proposed at $20/mo. Now, that will surely increase, and couple that with the revenue-grabbing scheme of “demand pricing” (which doubles or even triples your rate during those “peak” hours of say, 8am-10pm, during those hot summer months), and your monthly bill will be on a severe northward trend in perpetuity.
CPS has assured us that their database is secure from hackers getting the detailed information on our energy consumption, which can even identify individual appliance usage (for ‘smart’ appliances). Maybe CPS could open a side business offering cyber-security consultation to the Department of Defense, Sony, and the myriad of bigger companies who can’t manage to isolate their databases from hackers, despite huge budgets to do so. Me personally, I’d just as soon such a database not be collected to begin with, or be able to be collected from my house. The security risk of a bad actor gaining access essentially to one’s daily schedule at home and work is pretty obvious.
Those who uncritically laud this new technology as all-good are simply denying the obvious, and those of us who don’t want one anywhere near our houses have a very legitimate reason, with no remedy other than a true opt-out (to have a non-digital, analog meter put back on, or retained). Meter readers report widespread rejection – with notes posted on 25% of meters: “No Smart Meter”. CPS should have done better research on public sentiment prior to making this gigantic boondoggle investment, with questionable benefits – and should not have contracted unlicensed third party installers to arrive in un-marked cars and no uniforms to sneak into our backyards and switch them out before we can stop them – it’s downright creepy, and really doesn’t pass the smell test.
In December, CPS assured alamo Heights citizens they could keep their analog meters if the customer notified the company before Corix install a digital meter. the above article misses that fact. Also CPS Energy announced to Alamo Heights City council that customers would first receive a letter, 30 days ahead of Corix’planned arrival, and a phone call, 1 week ahead. There are many complaints from customers that they receive no warning at all. In some cases, the customer has sent an opt out letter but Corix shows up and installs anyway (as proven by a woman who spoke to San Antonio Ciitizens to be heard with a copy of her CERTIFIED letter and receipt in hand. ) CPS Energy enjoys monopoly status and is more like a for profit corporation.
Those of you who want a digital meter can now have one. what I don’t understand is how my right not to have one is not respected. San Antonio City Council has an obligation to protect the rights of citizens. What happened to oversight?
“CPS Energy recently wrote Brenan, saying Alamo Heights lacked authority in “dictating” to the utility how it provides energy to customers. Utility officials warned that calling such a special election, especially if the proposal were to pass, could lead to a court challenge. Council members asked Brenan to seek an opinion from the state attorney general’s office on whether it is permissible for the city to consider a special election of this magnitude.”
The city of AH “lacked authority” ??? Really? Seems to me that the Alamo Heights can pretty much tell CPS Energy to do whatever they tell them, and should tell CPS to “bring it on” (the veiled threat of a lawsuit). This is the first time I’ve actually heard of any push-back from CPS on a legality basis. The efforts of the grassroots group rejecting this onerous scheme must be starting to pay-off a little bit. They’re starting to feel it a little bit, in other words. And that’s good.
Wish the efforts of this little band of “rejectors” would permeate throughout all of Bexar County. I live outside the city limits of San Antonio (78261), but within the ETJ of it, and have CPS Energy as my only option for retail electricity, so if this issue would “take hold” across the San Antonio metro, CPS Energy would have much more difficulty coercing and violating the privacy of several thousand (if not several hundred thousand) more people.
For those people who don’t care if CPS Energy installs their meters onto your property, I hope you like having them raise the temperature in your house to 85F in the middle of August and/or lowering it to 60F in January/February – because they can, and they will.
If you think the temperature in your house is the only thing they will be able to control think again. With the cumming internet of things where almost any electrical device will be connected to the world wide web, the smart meter will provide the necessary check system to confirm the control of that device in your home based on the electrical signature sent back to the switching operator who sits at a regular p.c. terminal with software that communicates over cellular 4g/3g system controlling any device they wish for what ever reason they wish. The sheriff stated he was told by CPS that any device connected to the grid they own……..