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Smart Meters are great – so says the BC Government

What you need to know about Smart Meters

 

VICTORIA – The installation of smart meters is now 95 per cent complete throughout the province.

  • BC Hydro is continuing to work with customers that have questions about smart meters and will not install a meter without the customer’s consent.
  • Smart meters will pay for themselves by delivering $1.6 billion in savings to customers over the next 20 years.
  • New meters help upgrade the electricity system that has not really changed     since the 1950s. They are a key first step in modernizing our grid and     ensuring the safe, reliable delivery of electricity to homes and     businesses throughout B.C.

 

Benefits of Smart Meters

    • There are many benefits to smart meters, including:

o   Reducing safety risks and outages associated with  electricity diversions.

o   Making billing more accurate and timely.

o   Reducing need to access customers’ property.

o   Streamlining moving in and moving out procedures.

o   Providing new tools to track and manage home and business energy use through MYHYDRO that helps customers save money.

      • Reducing wasted electricity and keeping rates amongst the lowest in North America.

o   Restoring power more quickly and safely through automatic outage detection (available by fall 2013) — today BC Hydro does not know that a customer’s power is out unless customers phone them. With smart meters, BC Hydro will know exactly when and where the power goes out, allowing the problem to be fixed more quickly.

 

Improved Safety

      • All of BC Hydro’s electricity grid equipment, including meters, meet rigorous safety standards. Meters are regulated by Measurement Canada, and are compliant with the American National Standards Institute, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the International Electrotechnical Commission.
      • The new meters used by BC Hydro provides improved surge protection – up to 575 volts while digital meters only protects up to 385 volts. The old electromechanical (analog) meters do not offer any surge protection.
      • BC Hydro has been safely exchanging meters for decades.
      • Since the beginning of the smart meter program, installers have identified over 2,000 cases where homeowners had pre-existing unsafe meter socket conditions. All of these potential safety hazards have been repaired by a certified electrician at no cost to the homeowner.
      • Fixing broken meter sockets means a safer electrical grid and this has been confirmed in a report authored by the president of the B.C. Fire Chiefs. The report shows electrical-related fires in residential structures are rare and actually have declined in British Columbia since installation of the new meters started in July 2011.

 

Health

      • B.C.’s provincial health officer, Health Canada and the World Health Organization have confirmed that smart meters pose no known health risk or reason for concern.
      • BC Hydro’s meters use a wireless radio frequency that is far below Canadian guidelines. In fact, they are even below the strictest precautionary limits in the world set by Switzerland.
      • Smart meters communicate using radio frequency signals that are similar to what has been used for decades in televisions, radios and other common household devices.
      • The meters communicate using radio frequency for less than one minute per day. The total exposure to radio frequency from a smart meter – over its entire 20 year lifespan – is less than a single 30-minute cellphone call.