BC Hydro customers keeping old meters must pay $35 monthly: BCUC

BY BRIAN MORTON, VANCOUVER SUN OCTOBER 14, 2013 1:05 PM
BC Hydro customers can keep their old anologue meters for a surcharge of $35 monthly if they opt out at the end of the year, the B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC) has announced. In a decision allowing all approved charges on an interim basis, customers can also choose to accept a new smart meter and pay $100 to disable its radio transmitter, and then pay an additional $20 a month for manual readings. The fees would be in place Dec. 2. Hydro, which had applied to the province's independent power regulator for the fees to cover costs for people opting out of the smart meter grid, has said the fees will only cover costs, and aren’t meant to generate a profit. Hydro announced the smart meter opt-out program in July after strong opposition by many residents left the $1-billion provincewide program with more than 60,000 holdouts. Critics said they were worried about the smart meter’s wireless radio transmissions hurting their health, while others insisted they were being bullied into accepting the meters by installers. The Crown power corporation said the fees are necessary to offset the expense of manually reading meters for customers. The new smart meters wirelessly transmit power data directly to Hydro. It is application to BCUC, Hydro said it began contacting eligible customers to notify them of the meter choices in early September and that the enrolment period ends on December 1.