[BC Hydro Legacy Fees – FortisBC Subcontractor Olameter – High Bills & Meter Testing – Letter by Peter Scott – Shaw BlueSky TV – Sierra Club BC – SuperAdobe Earth Bag Architecture by Nader Khalili – Wireless Education Website | Galiano, BC – USA] & (video)
1) So many of us have paid the Legacy Fee which has made many millions of dollars for BC Hydro. Despite requests, I have never seen a detailed explanation for the fees – how much is it really costing Hydro to read our meters? This from a member which seems to show that BC Hydro is making a mint off our legacy fees!!! We need to demand a financial accounting and review of the legacy fees NOW!! Another election demand in exchange for our votes.
(click on photos to enlarge)
About 3 years ago or so, I sent you an email, which I cannot find. It was after they started deploying the smart meters and had laid off the Hydro meter readers. At that time, I talked to my FortisBC gas meter reader, who previously was the Hydro meter reader. FortisBC sub contracts the manual meter reading to a company called Olameter. The meter readers are paid $0.34 per meter in urban areas where they walk between houses and $1.30/meter in rural areas, like mine, where they have to provide their own transportation. Meter readers read 550-600 urban meters/day & 100-150 rural meters/day.
Last week, the Olameter reader came by, so I asked if his contract rates per meter had changed over the last few years. He said no, they are still paid the same $0.34/meter in urban areas & $1.30/meter for rural areas. He seemed quite happy with the arrangement.
2) A March, 2017 report by the Sierra Club BC on the long-term impact to tax payers and BC Hydro users for the bad decisions by the BC Liberals & BC Hydro.
Hydro Bill Madness
The BC Government Goes For Broke with Your Money
http://sierraclub.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/Hydro_Bill_Madness_SCBC_Report.pdf
3) A member who is very sensitive is beginning to build an earth home and he will be sharing information with us as the project progresses. This has been done all over the world in just about every climate – there might be earth homes in BC already.
SuperAdobe Worldwide
http://www.calearth.org/alumni-projects2
4) Shaw TV is advertising and offering you the ability to talk to your TV. I don’t know how it works, but if they can hear you ask for a program, what else will they be able to hear??
https://www.shaw.ca/television/blueskytv/?emid=res-clm-em-4062017-Aprnewsletter-v1-L2
5) Some people have experienced very high bills, with unusually high levels of consumption, over the last couple of billing periods.
One person who has a cabin on Galiano, that is used for only short periods in the summer, has only a small freezer plugged in, not even the heat is turned on. Yet the bi-monthly bills have gone from $30 to $169 and then to more than $250 with no explanation from BC Hydro. Certainly the “normal” explanation thrown out by Hydro “it’s been unusually cold” doesn’t work if the heat isn’t on.
Has anyone else received huge increases like this? As I’ve mentioned before, Electrical Engineers have said do NOT allow Hydro to take your meter for testing. Once removed from the meter base, the smeter will reboot like any other computer. If there had been a programming issue, it could be lost. Hydro will take the smeter to its pristine lab where there is no interference and will have full control over the testing and will say the meter is fine – you pay $100-125 for this. Any testing should be done on site, with you in attendance to watch, and it should be done over an extended period.
If you’ve had similar unusual billing, please go to www.bchydro.com and go into your account to get your history. Go to “view usage” . Under “viewing method” select “consumption data table”. This will show average daily consumption going back for several years. Compare usage pre- and post-smeters. If you have had really high usage, email me at dsnoble@shaw.ca. with “billing” on the subject line. Obviously, something is going on but we don’t know what. And with the rate hikes, all the blame can be put there when, in fact, the smeter might be measuring incorrectly.
6) A website from the USA is providing info about Wi-Fi that is suited for those new to the topic, not overwhelming and easy to understand. I hope you will share this, especially with parents and teachers.
Bite-size wireless education as easy as A,B,C
http://us15.campaign-archive1.com/?u=2cb7a2f376bf5c40bedc5138a&id=0ae5d11a6f&e=f94ef62d0b
Letters:
Smart meters found to overbill by Peter Scott – Times Colonist – April 6, 2017:
– http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/letters/smart-meters-found-to-overbill-1.14308342
I noticed after our conversion to a smart meter that despite increasingly aggressive conservation measures, my monthly bill kept going up.
Recently, I read that a team from the University of Twente and the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences has published a paper demonstrating gross overbillings by smart energy meters, ranging from -32 per cent to +582 per cent of actual power consumption [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170303180139.htm]. This is estimated to affect millions of smart meters worldwide.
The inaccuracies were determined to be more pronounced when customers used dimmer switches and LED bulbs, which are energy-reduction efforts we have undertaken. Yet B.C. Hydro offers no statement on this study.
Peter Scott
Metchosin
Sharon Noble
Director, Coalition to Stop Smart Meters
“You will observe with concern how long a useful truth may be known, and exist, before it is generally received and acted on.”
~ Ben Franklin