The Smart Meter roll-out is not going smoothly in Maryland.

WUSA, a Washington DC news channel, exposed PEPCO’s false claims about the pulses coming from Smart Meters by showing that Smart Meters pulse constantly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=eGdAefQ8nbg

350,000 Maryland customers are ignoring Baltimore Gas & Electric’s request for access to install Smart Meters. Many Smart Meters are inside buildings, so BGE must be allowed to go inside. BGE says they “have ignored repeated requests to switch out old meters located indoors or behind locked gates.” This is over 25% of BGE customers.

Maryland legislator Glen Glass introduced legislation so that residents could keep their analog meters for free, but other legislators blocked his bill.

Glass didn’t want a Smart Meter, but BGE installed one anyway. His bill went up, doubling.

So did the bills of many people he meets.

 “I’m talking to people all over the place and they’re telling me, ‘Yeah, my bill’s going through the roof,’ ” Glass said.

Maryland Smart Meter Awareness requested Smart Meter complaints from the Public Service Commission for approximately one year ending December 2013.[i] They received over 1500 complaints including opt-out requests. However, these were only mailed complaints, not phone or email complaints. The PSC said it “would require substantially more than 2 hours [to redact and copy] and would be costly”.

Exactly how many complaints are we talking about for only one year???

Meanwhile, the Public Service Commission is already charging fees to those who “opt-out” and moving toward putting fees on those who don’t accept the meters. 20,000 customers have already “opted-out”.

Incidentally, in California last week, the PUC overturned the opt-out fees for a PG&E customer – the second time this has happened in California.

[i] October 1, 2012 through December 10, 2013

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Sources:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-bge-smart-meters-20140803,0,4758898.story
Cost of not taking a smart meter arrives

http://marylandsmartmeterawareness.org/smart-meter-news/registered-smart-meter-complaints-in-maryland/
Registered Smart Meter Complaints in Maryland