Smart meters rejected

The New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board apparently thinks the remedy to be worse than the disease when it comes to reading electric power meters.  The EUB has turned thumbs down on a multi-million-dollar proposal by New Brunswick Power to convent all residences to so called “smart meters”.

The provincial power company had been proposing to spend more than $90 million over the next 15 years to install some 355,000 smart meters on N.B. homes.  But the EUB has put the kibosh to that at least for the present.

In a lengthy ruling, which also rejected a number of other proposals from the power company, the Energy and Utilities Board says there is simply not enough evidence to prove the benefits of the plan when compared to its costs.  While acknowledging that there might be some “non-quantifiable” benefits to the conversion, such as better billing processes and hopefully greater customer satisfaction, these benefits did not “overcome a negative business case.” In other words, they weren't worth the cost.

In the same decision, the Energy and Utility Board rejected NB Power's bid for  a $1.3M program to establish electric vehicle chargers because they are already being established by the private sector and it would not be in the public interest for the utility to also be doing it.

In a third decision made in the same release, the Board also rejected a proposed smart homes project because of delays in getting the program underway. 

The decisions show a rare appreciation of the need for real consideration of the impact on consumers of these expensive proposals, something which does not often seem apparent in such adjudicative decisions.

Nova Scotia Power and the Utilities Review Board in this province would do well to read these decisions carefully. In these cases, the little guy actually won!

Frank Likely is a retired Anglican minister who lives in Springhill.