One of the most frequent complaints I’ve heard about these new fangled (wireless) SmartMeters is that the customer’s electric bill has significantly increased from past billings.

How can that be? Is our regulated utility stealing from its customers?

It appears the answer is simple (NO!); but nonetheless tough to swallow. It seems that customers with old-style gear-driven (dumb) meters in many instances (obviously “many” evidenced by the large number of reported bill increases) have been aging overtime and as a result have slowed down according to meter reader sources.

When one considers the escalating, five-tiered electric rate structure and limited baseline kW-hr allotments, an affected customer with a newly installed (and finely calibrated) SmartMeter would likely see a significant increase in their electric costs since they would have historically been paying less for what they have actually used!

If you don’t like SmartMeters then that is even more reason to consider solar.

When you sign up for net metering (spinning your meter backwards), the utility installs a bidirectional meter calibrated roughly to +/- 2 percent accuracy.

There is currently no type of SmartMeter that can reliably spin both ways and track (peak, partial-peak and off-peak) times. Therefore the grid-tied solar customer-generator must have a hardwired (semi-smart) meter manually recorded monthly by a utility employee (job saving).

My sources tell me that it will be at least a couple of years before they can develop, test and deploy analogous (not analog) bidirectional (time-of-use) SmartMeters … or maybe not. Today, however, solar technology makes real (dollar) sense.

It is now very doable to swap your utility payment for no down payment (own the system); receive federal tax credits and accelerated equipment depreciation (businesses only).

What is the catch, you may ask? The property owner (or long-term lessee) must qualify for the loan (i.e. current on the taxes/mortgage payments). The solar loan payment is essentially covered by the monthly PG&E savings (maybe even positive cash flow)! Grid-tied solar photovoltaic is now a very affordable, clean energy technology that locks in lower electricity rates and high rates of return for the projected (30+)-year system life.

Dan (the Solar Man) Felperin lives in Cobb, Calif.