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<DIV>William:</DIV>
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<DIV>Many non-net-metered folk I know claim that their bills and consumption
have increased dramatically after the arrival of their Smart Meter and have
asked me for advice. For the most part I beg off....I'm not really in
the business of testing Smart Meters. The weather has been so wet and
cold this year that I suppose it could be due to increased electric use
over last year. I have wondered if the old cyclometer type meters have
just worn down and had been under-reporting consumption. This has been the
case in a few of our own installs when the <EM>new</EM> (non-smart) meter
arrives after a PV install and shows increased total consumption ( PV production
+ metered consumption ) over previous billing periods. When this happens
(very rarely) we will test the new meter against our own
readings. But we have had another batch of customers who received the
Smart Meters by mistake and were penalized until they could have a not-so-smart
meter re-installed. We had to send an email blast to our customer
base alerting them not to let the Edison subcontractor install any meter if
it is part of a neighborhood wide campaign and to call us or the utility to
make certain the meter that they are getting is dumb enough to know that
the electrons may go backwards, occasionally.</DIV>
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<DIV><FONT lang=0 size=3 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="12"><I>Patrick A.
Redgate<BR>Ameco Solar, Inc.<BR>7623 Somerset Blvd,<BR>Paramount, CA 90723<BR><A href="http://www.solarexpert.com/">www.solarexpert.com</A><BR><A href="http://www.amecosolar.com/">www.amecosolar.com</A><BR>562-633-4400</I></FONT></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV>In a message dated 3/6/2011 6:56:05 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
swingjunkie@gmail.com writes:</DIV>
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<P>William,<BR>We have run into issues with smart meters. We had a customer in
one of the pilot neighborhoods. What we saw was the meter registered his
production as consumption. Effectively doubling his consumption per the meter.
After some research it was determined that while the new smart meters were
indeed net metering capable the software back at the reporting station was not
net metering capable. Solution was to install an old dumb meter which was
bi_directionally accurate. I hope this helps.</P>
<P>Cheers Carl<BR>Sunrock Solar LLC</P>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Mar 5, 2011 6:47 PM, "William Miller" <<A title=mailto:william@millersolar.com href="mailto:william@millersolar.com">william@millersolar.com</A>>
wrote:<BR type="attribution">> Friends:<BR>> <BR>> Our local utility
(PG&E) is installing smart meters. These will not apply <BR>> to
interconnected customers because the meter apparently is not capable of
<BR>> two way metering.<BR>> <BR>> There has been a lot of
controversy about smart meters regarding safety, <BR>> accuracy and many
other issues. Do any of you have any evidence that smart <BR>> meters are a
problem in any regard?<BR>> <BR>> Thanks,<BR>> <BR>>
William<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Please note new e-mail address and
domain:<BR>> <BR>> William Miller<BR>> Miller Solar<BR>> Voice
:805-438-5600<BR>> email: <A title=mailto:william@millersolar.com href="mailto:william@millersolar.com">william@millersolar.com</A><BR>> <A title=http://millersolar.com/ href="http://millersolar.com/">http://millersolar.com</A><BR>> License No.
C-10-773985<BR></DIV><BR><BR>
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