Wednesday, October 27, 2010 at 1:00 p.m. District Bldg. Room 500
Councilwoman Muriel Bowser's Public Services Committee is holding a hearing on Deployment of the Smart Grid in the District of Columbia. This means the "Smart Meters" being installed by Pepco as the first step. We already know that these meters are not capable of NET metering of our electricity production without being individually re-programmed!. Given the multiple problems we are already having with NET meter installations, and Pepco billing, this is possibly our last best chance to bring our concerns forcefully before city authorities, Pepco, and the Public Service Commission.
Ms. Bowser may not be solar energy's best advocate on the Council, but her committee oversees utilities. We very seldom request that members of the solar cooperatives and solar installation owners join us in our efforts to see that our initiatives are protected and available for everyone in the city to take advantage of.
This is, however, an extremely important event. You need to join us in exposing the issues BEFORE the rollout of these meters gains too much momentum to change.
There are a number of key issues:
1. As renewable energy producers we are entitled to technology that provides data regarding production, not just consumption;
2. The public has no idea what this program is, and Pepco and the Public Service Commission need to honestly outreach for community involvement in the design of this program which will have long lasting effect on our lives;
3. The rollout of the meters should not proceed unless the equipment and the plan include renewable energy as a component.
Also, we need to educate CM Bowser on how broad and diverse the support for solar is in DC. We need her to join our vision of having solar affordable and accessible to all DC residents. We need CM Bowser to understand that solar and the green jobs that come with it are good for all the Wards in DC.
You can submit testimony to this hearing without having to sit and wait for your turn at the microphone to make your points. To submit statements without testifying you must submit copies to the Secretary to the Council, Cynthia Brock-Smith, she's in Room 5 on the Ground Floor of the District Building.
If you do want to make a statement please contact Davida Crockett of the Committee on Public Services and Consumer Affairs via email at dcrockett@dccouncil.us or by phone at (202) 741-0898 by 5:00 p.m. Tuesday, October 26.
If you do not have time to attend and make a statement, please make an effort stop by the hearing room and make as many people aware that you are a solar home owner and very concerned about your future as an enlightened member of the smart grid.
I've copied this excellent post from David Roodman's blog (http://blogs.cgdev.org/open_book/)
ReplyDeleteBy David Roodman
We speak in the DC think tank biz about going to “testify on the Hill.” You know what that means. Just now I testified off the Hill, before the City Council, in my capacity as someone who lives on the Hill. The local utility, PEPCO, is on the verge of spending $90 million to install “smart” meters in all DC homes. About half of that is stimulus money. I gather the meters will allow access to real-time information about energy usage. Maybe we’ll be able to monitor our power production on the web. Instant feedback about energy use is a good thing. The meters would also make it possible for PEPCO to charge higher rates at peak times: also good for economic efficiency.
Trouble is, these meters are not so smart that they know how to count backwards. Mine needs to in order to reflect the fact that I will often generate more power than I consume with my new solar panels.
The selection criteria for being a witness at the hearing were: you have to live in DC; and you have to ask to testify. That combination was irresistible to my inner pontificator.
Here’s what I said:
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is David Roodman and I am a DC homeowner and a member of the Capitol Hill Energy Co-op. I recently had solar panels installed on my roof. They work great, but I can’t use them yet because I am still waiting for PEPCO to install a net meter. It’s been almost 4 weeks and counting, waiting for a 10-minute procedure. Actually, I already have a modern digital meter. I turned my panels on for an hour a few weeks ago. What happened was pretty funny. The digital equivalent of the second hand on my meter went backwards as it should, but the equivalent of the minute hand—the kilowatt-hour counter—just went forward even faster. So PEPCO as charging me for power I was giving it! So that’s what happens when a digital meter that is not a net meter meets solar power. Not very smart. But I’m afraid it’s an apt symbol for where we’re headed with “smart meters.”
I would like to thank the Council for its role in supporting the mini-boom in solar power in DC. It’s nice to have the panels on my roof, but ultimately the beneficiaries are my children, your children, all of us who live with cleaner air as a result.
I understand that there are plans for a $90 million program to install “smart meters” in DC. I think the goal of giving people real-time information on their usage is great. Except these high-tech, digital meters apparently aren’t as smart as my seven-year-old, who knows how to count backwards.
This is absurd. We face a climate crisis. Our atmosphere is shifting into a state unprecedented in the history of our species. We may feel insulated from nature by our technology. But we are not. The food you eat today comes from the sun and the rain.
I believe that the world must (within reasonable bounds) move quickly to harvest renewable energy whenever and wherever it can. Almost every day, energy from the sun pours onto this building and all the buildings of DC. But we slough it off, preferring to pay coal mining companies to lop the tops off West Virginia’s mountains and dump the toxic waste into her valleys.
That is why, I believe, that most energy visionaries see a place in our future for distributed generation; they see a world in which the old wall between consumer and producer is torn down. The change is akin to the arrival of electronic social networking, which empowers all of us to be not just readers but authors too. Thanks in part to the DC grant program for solar power, a rapidly growing group of DC voters has demonstrated its enthusiasm for the distributed model. If you think about it, this is about democratizing our energy system—literally spreading the power around.
continue reading on next comment...
Please read David Roodman's excellent testimony on the pepco "dumb meters" here:
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.cgdev.org/open_book/2010/10/in-which-i-testify-off-the-hill.php