In the previous Post it became obvious to the BBC that the public's knowledge of just how much each household in British Columbia is paying to BC Hydro, is based on Averages. Averages coming from BC Hydro alone.
Reports in the Press and CTV, are of extreme natures where a home's Chevrolet-Volt-like-Smart-Meter, once installed, has gone ballistic after having gone from a billing model of a Model-T-Ford-analogue monitoring system.
The Smart Meter has gone to new heights, like in some cases, to a 1000 per cent increase in one month!
That reporting has lessened over the past couple of months. Is it because the news media is awaiting the next batch of BC Hydro bills being delivered, or is the worst of it, over? Has the rogue Smart Meters been weeded out, or does it have more to do with the fact that Rich Coleman's Cold Winter Snap is over, Spring is almost gone, Summer is here, sporadically.
It would seem that as customers of BC Hydro, or Fortis, in the Interior of British Columbia, no one has a clear picture of whether we're getting a fair shake from either Electrical Companies or BC Utilities Commission.
No one wants to tell their neighbours that for the past 25 years they have been getting a deal of a lifetime from their old metering system, sure there are the ones that show up in the Press, but their numbers are relatively recent, under five years.
To upgrade from the analogue system, BC Hydro has consistently blamed their losses on Grow-Ops, but what if the majority of losses has been through a faulty metering system all along?
Even the example that BC Hydro has used to sell their Upgrade program to their customers speaks of how a "John and Susan" couple, or as here at the BBC renamed them, "Richard and Christy", the young family of five, only plan on being in their house for a total of five years. They're already into the beginning of their second years and have discovered that their monthly energy bills are too high. To save $60 a month they had to take to tossing out their single pane windows and go for Gold in double pane windows. Next came the sealing of exterior doors, and then stop the loss of heat through the attic. Efficient Hot Water tanks were next, so too for the Furnace or Baseboard Heaters. The upgrade was not carried on the backs of a customer seeking out a loan from bank or a credit union, oh no, the deal was struck by BC Hydro being the banker, and the payments for upgrade being included in the monthly utility bills for services rendered by third parties.
The BBC would like to know this:
"Is there a list of REAL billing numbers $$$$, for say one city block of Vancouver?"
"One city block for Vancouver Island North, so too for other communities throughout BC"
In the previous post, near the bottom, there are three examples, ranging from north of Parksville, to North Vancouver, to West Vancouver, and the results are too the extreme, considering that BC Hydro example of "Richard and Christy" includes Electricity AND Natural Gas.
With that in mind, Electricity AND Natural Gas is in this list, except for the one from West Van.
1 e.a.f. Home
1200 sq. ft.
Note: line dry laundry in the summer; in winter one out of 3 loads double windows
Location: Parksville
Note: Lower rate because of a secondary backup heating system
Cost per month $88 yr round.
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2 BBC Home
Built ten years ago ergo double windows tons of insulation
2600 sq. ft.
Location: North Vancouver
Note: Primary and Secondary suite
Cost per month $205 per unit
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3 Rich and Christy's hypothetical home, after renovation
2156 sq. ft.
Vancouver (East) near Main Street
$140 per month yr. round
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4 From the North Shore News, Letters section, May 27, 2012.
4000 sq. ft.
West Vancouver
$39 for electricity ONLY.... no mention of Natural Gas.
Note: owner is a Retired BCUC Secretary
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Send a email Letter to the Editor of the North Shore News
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Update: May 27, 2012
Anonymous
5 1600 sq. ft. living space
South Surrey
$181.36 on prior billing month (Spring)
$141.23 last billing month (Spring)
Note: three level townhome
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Highland Robert
6 ???? sq. ft.
Note: April 2011 to March 2012
North Vancouver
Natural Gas ($2350) per year $196 per month
BC Hydro ($ 850) per year $ 71 per month
Total of the two per month $267
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7, 8, 9, 10 etc..... is for your comment
Its not like we lean across our fences and talk about the costs of services provided to our homes. Yes, we all talk about Telus versus Shaw, but when it comes to Electricity and Natural Gas, there's a void.
Is that because we don't want to find out that the neighbour is getting a MUCH better deal?
Surrey row houses, now they should be the same, right?
Downtown Vancouver high rise towers?
Spanish Banks and UBC Endowment Lands homes Utility billing?
Half Moon Bay, weekend retreats from the busy life of being a politician who currently resides full time in London?
How about our MLAs, their temporary Victoria residences away from their Real homes, or does the taxpayer pick up that tab, and if we do, shouldn't we know just how efficient the homes are?
MLA Constituency Offices?!
2 comments:
Consider this: Hydro representatives have admitted during "smart"promotions that these s/meters capture otherwise "lost and dissipated" electricity.Ask yourself what you suspect this may mean. Can a s/meter capture ambient electricity that goes to ground before it ever reaches your house? The answer is YES. Hydro reps have admitted as much. Asked what ELSE this capture system involves, the Hydro reps described a way to capture otherwise "lost" but measurable current from dozens of motor driven appliances per household use start up surges until now unable to be captured by analog meters since these surges take mere microseconds to occur during each duty cycle. Now add up all those microsurge motor start up spikes per house and multiply by several million buildings. Every one of these microsurge spikes has come to represents "usage" for every fifteen minute interval graphed by the s/meter software which also makes it possible to "capture" all ambient, nearby forms of eletromagnetism& register all of it as "usage" of electricity, used or otherwise.
Do the math. This represents a massive revenue stream, a veritable gold mine, no matter how "power smart" is any renovation R value of any home, even when discounting the years of "payback" to recoup the up front costs to renovate & upgrade. The reality is that this software design is why electricity bills will continue to be off the charts, even without Time-Of-Use (mentioned by Coleman and others in Hansard & still to come) and rate raises (45% in 3 years. Ca ching Ca ching. Hydro bills are guaranteed to go sky high, just as in Ontario, Quebec, California, in fact everywhere, including for those people who use non electrical sources of heat to keep themselves warm & to heat hot water. I know two people who with vacation properties they rarely get to who have, just a power shed & a pump, just bare land. Their Hydro bills have gone up tenfold.
Read the Weight and Measures Act. It is against the law to routine estimate usage based on the highest usage for a given interval. Study what it has to say about the legality of estimating usage based on the highest spike for every fifteen minutes interval. Hydro you are so busted.
IMPORTANT - Smart meter Coalition overseen by Sharon Noble with the platform stopsmartmetersbc.ca needs to have information from anyone willing to provide it whose usage numbers (e.g. number of kilowatt hours) has increased drastically over the last few months. They ask that willing people indicate number of hours in same time frame last year and this year, type of meter (smart meter, digital, analog). If non-smart meter, do neighbours have smart meters? If they do, when were they installed?
dsnoble@shaw.ca, Subject line “Billing increases"
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