By Andrew Knittle
The Norman Transcript
NORMAN — With more than 100,000 smart meters installed in Norman, Moore and portions of south Oklahoma City thus far, the state’s largest electric company is well on its way to converting its service area into a smarter, more efficient power grid.
OG&E spokesman Brian Alford said all of OG&E’s customers in Norman and Moore have had the new meters installed, with contractors moving into south Oklahoma City. He said OG&E hopes to have all of its customers in Oklahoma converted by the end of 2012.
Alford said the new meters are designed to help reduce the number of crew deployments for termination-of-service calls and improve customer service, among others. Company officials also have said the smart meter project will allow them to avoid building more plants that burn fossil fuels to create electricity, the cost of which is passed down to customers.
In July, OG&E got approval from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to roll the smart meter program out to all of its customers in the state. The company expects to spend about $360 million on the project, with about $127 million of that coming in the form of stimulus funds earmarked for smart grid projects.
Roll out not without drama
But not everything has gone smoothly. At least not all of the time.
Jack Goddard, who lives on Boyd Street, said he noticed a problem with his electric bill a couple of months after the smart meter was installed at his home.
“It was actually two bills, July and August, that I noticed were noticeably higher than last year,” Goddard said. “The one in August was significantly higher, and there are variables, I know, but I did notice an increase that seemed out of the ordinary.”
Goddard said he contacted OG&E about his concerns, but he was “kind of given the run around.”
“I just asked for the data, whether bills were higher with the new smart meters compared with last year, and they didn’t have it,” he said. “They referred me to the contractor doing the installation, which I thought was kind of odd.”
Alford said OG&E has fielded a limited amount of complaints regarding billing errors, but added that it was anticipated given the scope of the project.
“As you would expect, when you’re installing what is now over 100,000 meters, you’re going to have some issues ... things happening in homes post-installation...random events,” Alford said. “Typically, we’ll look into each of the calls we receive and try and find out what the problem is.”
Alford said the most common problem can be traced to a human being, not a meter.
“Human error has been the leading cause of billing errors during this process,” he said. “The installers have mis-entered data, typically, but we usually only hear about that when the bill is on the high side, although it goes both ways (meaning some customers get lower-than-expected bills but don’t call in).”
Alford said OG&E’s contractors also took digital photos of old meters’ last readings to safeguard against billing errors, but added that recent hot weather could go a long way toward explaining large jumps in bills compared with last year.
“It’s been an incredibly hot summer, and as you would expect, bills are going to be higher,” he said. “Last year, we had some warm days, but nothing like we’ve had this year, with several days of 100-plus temperatures.”
Alford said all of the GE-made meters deployed by OG&E’s contractors are tested at the factory and “we have additional meters we pull and test ourselves.” He also said the meters “have proven to be extremely accurate” thus far and that, despite their ability to communicate with the outside world, the new meters aren’t that different from the old ones.
“There’s nothing unique about a smart meter that makes it different from the old meter,” Alford said. “The meter, the functionality of the meter, is the same. It’s the technology that comes with it that’s different.”
For his part, Goddard is mainly concerned with the lack of information, especially since Norman was chosen to host the pilot program.
“They clearly weren’t interested in putting that data in anybody’s hands,” Goddard said. “I think it might look bad, publicity wise, if the data showed that people are paying three to five percent more (with smart meters) than they were last year.”
And as for a resolution, Goddard said he hasn’t seen one yet.
“I don’t know whether my bill is inaccurate, I just wanted to be able to check the data for myself,” Goddard said. “It just strikes me as odd that it’s not available, and they certainly didn’t seem like they wanted to give it to me.”
Are the meters causing fires?
In Texas and California, smart meters have been linked to at least three structure fires, including two in mid-August in Arlington, Texas.
Media reports on the fires in Arlington cited old wiring as the cause, while the cause of the smart meter-related blaze in California, which started at a business, never was determined.
Alford said he’s never heard anything about smart meters causing fires — in Norman or anywhere else.
“I have heard absolutely nothing about that,” he said. In Norman, there hasn’t been a spike in structure fires since the smart meters were installed.
OG&E began installing the smart meters about Feb. 20 and since then there have been 36 structure fires, according to Norman Fire Department records. Compared with the same time span a year ago, that number is 39.
When asked if OG&E’s new smart meters were the cause of any fires since the energy company began installing them in the area in February, Assistant Fire Chief Jim Bailey said he’d “never heard anything about it.”
“None of them have been caused by those (smart meters),” Bailey said of the structure fires in Norman since mid-February, when OG&E began installing the smart meters. He also said the meters never had been a suspected cause of any fire since they were installed earlier in the year.
“I don’t have any indication that the smart meters caused any fires since they’ve been installed,” Bailey said. “It would stand out and that would be something I know.
“And we would let OG&E know so they could solve the problem, because it’s a safety issue at that point.”
Andrew Knittle 366-3540 aknittle@normantranscript.com
