ELECTRICITY: SMART METERS
24-March-2010
Mr O’BRIEN (Malvern) — I grieve for all Victorian families and small businesses who are suffering now and will suffer for years to come because of the gross incompetence of the Brumby government’s oversight of the rollout of smart meters across this state. The smart meter project has gone from shambles to scandal under the incompetence of the Brumby government……………….. read more via Electricity: smart meters > Michael O’Brien MP, State Member for Malvern.
Paul Austin: THE state government has temporarily pulled the plug on Victoria’s $2 billion smart energy meter program.
Energy Minister Peter Batchelor last night announced an indefinite moratorium on the rollout of the new technology to every home across the state – because of concerns pensioners and the poor would be hardest hit by higher electricity prices.
Mr Batchelor made the announcement, an election-year embarrassment for the government, after meeting representatives of the poor, including St Vincent de Paul and the Victorian Council of Social Service.
Advertisement: Story continues below
He made it clear the government intended to push ahead with the scheme, but gave no indication as to how long the moratorium might last.
The plan to install smart meters in all 2.5 million Victorian homes and small businesses over the next four years, and introduce a new time-of-use pricing regime, has been beset by controversy.
The government argues the new technology, which can read a household’s energy use every 30 minutes, will enable people to monitor their use in peak periods and turn on high-energy appliances such as dishwashers during off-peak times.
But charity groups estimate the meters, dubbed ”dumb meters” by the state opposition and already installed in more than 10,000 homes in Melbourne, could increase a household’s annual electricity bill by more than $250 a year.
Victorian Auditor-General Des Pearson savaged the scheme in a report to Parliament late last year, saying installation costs had blown out from an original estimate of $800 million to more than $2 billion. ”There has been insufficient analysis to fully understand potential perverse outcomes, risks and unintended consequences for consumers,” he said.
VCOSS chief executive Cath Smith last night welcomed the moratorium, saying Mr Batchelor had recognised that people who spend a lot of time at home during the day or who could not shift their energy use to off-peak times could suffer.
Ms Smith said the elderly, long-term unemployed and people with disabilities might be hit hardest by the new pricing plan. ”It’s imperative the impacts of time-of-use pricing are investigated and measures are put in place to ensure low-income and disadvantaged households are not worse off,” she said.
Mr Batchelor said last night: ”We are committed to ensuring the transition to a new pricing structure is managed carefully and sensibly.” He promised to regularly review the effect of time-of-use tariffs on families.
But he defended smart meters, saying they would help Victorians tackle climate change.
Melissa Fyfe February 13, 2011
Milena Adams says wiring in her Richmond home was faulty. Photo: Ken Irwin
VICTORIA’S energy regulator has conceded smart meter contractors might lack required skills and is reviewing the qualifications of workers rolling out the $2 billion scheme.
The Sunday Age can also reveal that, in the course of their work, smart meter installers have identified dangerous and possibly life-threatening electrical hazards in 3500 Victorian homes.
Energy Safe Victoria has requested electricity distribution companies provide the names, qualifications and employment details of the hundreds of contractors installing smart meters across the state.
This comes after the Electrical Trades Union raised concerns about skilled migrants working as installers with qualifications that would not pass Victorian standards. The Sunday Age believes the regulator is mostly concerned about the qualifications of Indian workers who come to Victoria via South Australia.
The regulator recently moved to allay fears over the smart meter program, after a Highett woman received an electric shock when her meter was incorrectly installed. It is understood the qualifications of the installer in that incident sparked the regulator’s concerns.
”We are concerned about the quality of the work,” the regulator’s spokesman David Guthrie-Jones said. ”We’ve identified now that some of the installers have come in on work visas from overseas, received their required qualifications from other states, then under the arrangements that exist between states they can come into Victoria to work.”
This comes as a Richmond woman has claimed her son received an electric shock arising from the failure of a contractor to check wiring after installing a smart meter in August. Milena Adams said after her smart meter was installed, light globes exploded and household appliances dimmed her lights. She says that in December, her son received a shock when touching a shower tap. The electricity company CitiPower checked her house immediately.
Ms Adams said CitiPower told her the problem arose from the smart meter installer not checking wiring, but the company says the fault was due to a tree in Ms Adams’s yard. Energy Safe Victoria accepts the company’s report of the incident.
Energy Minister Michael O’Brien told The Sunday Age that safety was the government’s first priority. He said only one incident of harm has been recorded after 460,000 smart meter installations. ”Energy Safe Victoria is making the right call in checking the qualifications that we require in Victoria are being observed.”
Mr O’Brien said Victorians should know that the smart meter program, which aims to install a new meter in every home across the state, has provided a ”safety dividend”, with hazardous faults being identified in 3500 homes.
Electrical Trades Union state secretary Dean Mighell welcomed the regulator’s move but said it was disappointing that the Highett woman had to be hurt before action was taken on poorly trained workers. He said the union would be campaigning against piecework, whereby contracted installers are paid a price per meter. ”That’s just a recipe for disaster,” he said.
The smart meter program was conceived under the former Labor government. The meters allow electricity companies to remotely read meters and charge for electricity at different times of the day.
via Smart meter shock: electrical hazards found in 3500 homes.
ENERGY bills for low-income households could rise 30 per cent a year through the introduction of smart meters, a system that charges consumers higher prices during peak consumption times.
Backed by the nation’s governments, smart meters are being rolled-out across Victoria and NSW, with other states set to follow.
The system, which allows power companies to set their prices based on peak or off-peak times, aims to help consumers better manage electricity use.
The Victorian roll-out already has been criticised by the state’s auditor-general, who found consumers paid an average of $150 more a year more for power.
A new study by the University of Melbourne shows it will come at an even higher cost to the the nation’s most vulnerable consumers, including pensioners and single parents.
The study, prepared for the Ministerial Council on Energy, found that the time-of-use pricing system increased power bills by up to $300 a year for low-income families.
About 30 per cent of households fall into this category and the increase represented a 30 per cent jump on their average annual power bills.
Report co-author, Dr Michael McGann, said pensioners and stay-at-home mums were not able to shift energy use from the peak day-time periods.
“So the ability of the poor to be able to afford electricity use to meet needs like cooking, cleaning, showering … is under threat,” he said.
“Any policies that make the poorest members of society worse off than they already are is unjust.”
The report recommends low-income households be exempt from the price hikes during peak energy times.
One of the nation’s largest welfare providers, St Vincent de Paul, agreed, saying national protections needed to be put in place.
“If the Commonwealth of Australia is serious about having a socially inclusive and fair society it will take a leading role in making sure that disadvantaged households are properly protected,” chief executive Dr John Falzon said.
via Study finds ‘smart meters’ hit low-income homes with extra $300 a year | Herald Sun.
THE State Government may suspend the installation of electricity smart meters while it reviews the embattled major project.
Prabath Gamage from Broadmeadows with his smart meter. Picture: Craig Borrow Herald Sun
Energy Minister Michael O’Brien will this month seek details on the cost and legal implications of delaying the rollout ahead of an audit of the $2 billion system.
A full review of potential improvements and whether it is worth dumping the scheme for an alternative will be commissioned amid concerns that consumer benefits have been overstated.
Every household and small business is paying to replace old meters with the digital technology, even before their installation.
Mr O’Brien estimates families will be charged $900 each for meter hardware over the next 15 to 20 years.
Outer suburban residents, including Broadmeadows, Sunbury and Craigieburn, will pay the highest charge, $109.68, this year.
Regulators have approved the lowest annual fee of $57.70 to be spread across quarterly bills, for outer north and eastern Victoria.
So far, about 300,000 meters, which monitor consumption every half hour, have been fitted.
Mr O’Brien told the Herald Sun the new Government would press ahead with its election pledge for an unbiased audit of the program, which has been plagued with cost blowouts and allegations of mismanagement.
“If there are skeletons in the closet, I want them on the table,” Mr O’Brien said.
He assured householders they would not be forced on to “time of use” prices with high penalties for using peak power during the day and in summer and discounts for using electricity late at night.
The industry is likely to vigorously oppose a rollout suspension, arguing that changing contract arrangements will cost tens of millions of dollars.
The cost-benefit review, to take three to six months, will be the fourth since smart meters were mooted.
“Like myki, so much money has already been invested in this program, the difficulties in going back to square one would be enormous,” Mr O’Brien said.
The Department of Primary Industries said the meters would eventually reduce supply costs by removing manual reads, managing demand, restoring power faster after faults and blackouts and helping consumers control consumption and bills.
“After the upgrade, Victorians will benefit from a better, more efficient system, which will keep the cost to supply electricity lower than it otherwise would have been,” the DPI website reads.
Newly-installed Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu intends to tackle the state’s troubled smart meter roll-out, vowing to implement recommendations put forward by an auditor-general’s report from November 2009.
Victoria’s smart meter deployment started in 2009 and planned to replace 2.5 million electricity meters around the state in total, with the Brumby Government promising 680,000 smart meters to consumers by 2013.
An initial report into the project said that it would lead to savings totalling $5 billion.
However, the plan came under fire after the Victorian auditor-general handed down a report slamming the project’s lack of governance and shoddy trial process. The report also said there was limited value for Victorians in the project and pulled apart the original cost-benefit analysis, labelling many of its conclusions as false.
“The [project] has not used the checks and balances that would ordinarily apply to a major investment directly funded by the state,” the attorney-general’s report said.
The newly-elected Coalition now plans to implement all recommendations prescribed in the auditor-general’s report, which includes developing a stakeholder engagement plan, re-assessing the project’s value to Victorians, updating the cost-benefit analysis of the project to include changes in the project scope and adopting the risk model of the Department of Treasury and Finance.
In a statement from Premier Baillieu’s office yesterday, ZDNet Australia was told that the Coalition Government also intends to establish a special committee to ensure that collected customer information is kept safe. It will also release documents which had previously been withheld.
“A coalition government will … release smart meter documents that the Brumby Government has kept hidden, despite the Legislative Council ordering their production,” the premier said in the statement.
via Baillieu sets eye on smart meter fix – Business – News – ZDNet Australia.
