Consumers Energy Gas Smart Meters-- You Can Opt Out

Consumers Energy will allow customers to opt out of the smart gas meter at no charge. They will first try to get you to accept the AMR/ERT/modular gas meter instead. Tell them, no, you don't want that, you want to keep your current, analog gas meter. They will allow you to do so.

If you get your electricity from DTE and your gas from Consumers, there is currently no charge to opt out.

If you get both electric and gas from Consumers, then the opt-out charge for the electric meter will include the gas meter, but you must be sure to tell them you want to have an analog gas meter.

Here is one person's report:

"Once I mentioned I wanted to opt out of having a gas smart meter on my home, she told me I would get a modular added to my current meter, so that the Consumer Energy driver could retrieve the info just by driving by without stopping.

  

"I refused it and said I didn’t want any modular either, and that we were anyway always taking a picture each month of the reading and uploading it on their website. She accepted my request easily. She confirmed I will not get a modular and will retain my analog meter. I asked if there would be any extra fee for the opt out. She answered: not at this time but she can’t guarantee they won’t be any later at some point."

For more information about smart meters, and to sign up for our newsletter, which will keep you up to date, please go to Smart Meter Education Network.

Important: Tell House Energy Committee & MPSC About Your Electric Bill Increases

Our previous posts discuss the huge billing increases some DTE and Consumers Energy customers are experiencing. If you are experiencing these billing increases, please ACT! Here's how:

1.      The Michigan House Energy Committee continues to hold hearings on the Analog Meter Choice Bill, HB 4220. It is very important to submit comments to the committee and to let all other state legislators know about these bill increases. 

3.      You need to let your own state representative and senator know what is happening.

4.   

5.       Make sure to save what you write up. You will need it in the future.

What to Say

 1.      We have outlined what you need to say at Huge Electric Bill Increases. You can see a sample letter I sent in at DTE Defrauding Customers.

2.      You will compare not the dollar amount of your bill  but the kWh (kilowatt-hour) usage from the same months in different years. That is easy to do, because DTE give you that information on the front of your bill.  The longer you can go back in time, the better.

3.      At the end of your letter, tell the legislators that the only meter that can accurately measure your ACTUAL electricity usage is the analog meter. You can also tell them that the smart meter and any digital meter can be configured to measure in any way it wants, because it’s a computer. You can also mention that smart meters can be hacked.  Be sure to put this in your own words! If they get bunches of letters with the same wording, it has less effect.

4.      Tell them that you want a meter that measures your electricity usage accurately, and for this reason you want House Bill 4220, the Analog Meter Choice Bill, passed.

Make sure you write your own state representative and senator (and tell them you are their constituent). We urge you to write all Michigan representatives and senators (copy-and-paste lists at the links). Put whatever title you want in the subject line.

Below are lists of House Energy Committee Members. For what you are sending to the committee, you must make sure you put “Testimony for February 13, 2018 Energy Committee Hearing” in the subject line.

House Energy Committee Emails

esleeper@house.mi.gov

TimSneller@house.mi.gov

DonnaLasinski@house.mi.gov

JosephBellino@house.mi.gov

DarrinCamilleri@house.mi.gov

TristonCole@house.mi.gov

ScottDianda@house.mi.gov

BrianElder@house.mi.gov

PatrickGreen@house.mi.gov 

BethGriffin@house.mi.gov

StevenJohnson@house.mi.gov

BeauLaFave@house.mi.gov

JamesLower@house.mi.gov

JohnReilly@house.mi.gov

JimTedder@house.mi.gov

DianaFarrington@house.mi.gov

LaTanyaGarrett@house.mi.gov

GaryGlenn@house.mi.gov

TomBarrett@house.mi.gov

DTE Defrauding Customers

See our previous post about skyrocketing electric bills. It's very important that you write the legislators about this.  You can get their contact information on our Analog Meter Choice Bill page.

Here's the letter I just sent:

Perhaps you are aware that thousands of customers are complaining of skyrocketing electric bills in the middle of winter, even when they have gas heat.

I am one of those customers. 

I have lived in my Ann Arbor home for 21 years. I heat my house via a GAS boiler.  Suddenly, after the smart meter was put on my home, my ELECTRIC usaage has jumped 140% (over what it was the year before) for the last billing cycle, which ended in mid-January. There is no other year in which my electric bill has been so insanely high for the past 21 years, and there is NO REASON for it to be high in the winter.

Could it be the cold? Nope. My GAS usage has gone up 77% for the same period, not 140%, and I heat my house with a gas boiler.

The sole explanation, given that I am not running anything more than usual: The smart meter.

The smart meter is a black box. An analog meter passively measures your total consumption. The computer that is the smart meter can be programmed remotely to do anything they want it to do. And the customer has no recourse, no way to prove that s/he is being cheated.

The only solution is an ANALOG meter. The utility can't program it to run differently or charge a different rate.

House Bill 4220, the Analog Meter Choice Bill, needs to be passed  because customers are being defrauded and the only way to prevent this fraud is an analog meter.

I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on this matter.  Thank you.

Linda Kurtz

 

Huge Electric Bill Increases: What to Do

Has your electric bill gone up significantly at any point since a smart meter was installed on your home? It has for many people (see previous posts on this blog). Make your voice heard to the legislators and the Michigan Public Service Commission.  What you need to show is that your bill increased significantly—some people have seen $20,000 to $34,000 bills for one month of electricty usage, others spikes of several hundred dollars. Links: Fox17 report on Consumers. Write to the following:

• House Energy Committee, Senate Energy Committee, your state rep, your state senator, all Michigan state reps, all Michigan senators.  These are email addresses you can simply copy and paste into your email.
• Michigan Public Service Commission: File a complaint. Enough complaints will likely trigger a hearing. DTE is already on the dock for the numerous shut-offs it has perpetrated without following proper procedure. Your complaint can be another nail in their coffin.

Due to the cold we experienced in December and January, your heating bill (and probably your electric bill, even if you have gas heat) will likely have increased over the same time last year. That said, if your bill has gone up hundreds of dollars, you can be almost certain that the smart meter is the culprit.

How do you show this? It is very easy to do. Look at the kWh usage that shows on the front of the bill and compares to the same period last year. Then look at bills from earlier years. How much has your kWh usage changed? Bills can fluctuate due to costs, but if your kWh usage has changed significantly, you are either running new equipment in your home or your meter is not accurately recording usage. When you write the legislators, you can tell them about both your cost increase and your usage increase.

The information on the front of the bill is not the amount your bill has increased from previous years, but the amount your energy consumption has changed.  Here is DTE's How to Read a Bill.

Also, if you have gas heat, see whether the gas usage has gone up. If it has, what is it compared to the electric. My guess is, your guess has gone up (because it was so cold), but your electric has increased way, way more. If you aren't using space heaters or runing new equipment, then you can bet the meter is not recording your actual usage. See this letter I wrote to the Energy Committee.

Make sure you are clear that you have a smart electric meter on your home. Be sure to tell the legislators and the MPSC whether you use electric or gas heat. I suggest that if you have gas heat, you look at how much your CCF usage has increased over last year. If you have gas heat, the usage increase is almost certainly accurate, because while the gas smart meter transmits wirelessly, your gas usage is still measured on an analog basis. For instance, my gas CCF usage went up 77% over my usage the prior year. But my electric usage went up 144%!  How is it that with gas heat, my  electric usagewent up twice as much as my gas usage (especially when I have boiler heat)? It's a clear indication that the smart meter is cheating me.
 

Have you been running any new appliances? To determine if your bill has gone up for reasons other than an increase in electricity costs, figure out the following. This isn’t difficult, it just takes a lot of words to explain. For the legislature and the MPSC to see through the smokescreens, we need evidence!

1. Have you been running anything new (for example, computer, electric heater, appliance) that you did not run in prior years?
2. If you have a gas or electric furnace, is the fan set to "On" or to "Auto"? If it's set to "On," this means it is running all the time, not just when the furnace is on, and this could increase your bill significantly.
3. Have you been running anything more often than you have in past years?
4. If you have, you can determine how many kWh have been used by looking up your product online. For example, If your heater has a 1000 watt rating and your cost of electricity is $0.080350/Kwh your cost to operate for one hour would be $0.08. If you ran the heater 24/7, it would cost you $1.60 per day, or $50 per month.
5. Compare the kWh charges for this bill to bills from the same months in previous years. If the charges are different, compute what the charges for the old bill would have been if you were being charged what you are being charged now.
6. Next, look on the back of the bill under “Current Billing Information.” You will see “Days Billed.” Divide your total charges by the number of days you were billed for. That will give you your average daily rate.
7. How different is this from previous years, computing previous years as if they were billed at the current rate?
8. Keep all your computations.
9. When you present your testimony orally or in writing, show how you arrived at your answer.
10.  It is best to simply tell them how much your kWh usage has increased, according to DTE or Consumers.  What they record as kWh is what they use to compute your bill.

Just like math in school—not much fun for most of us, but essential!



A little more info not needed for the above, but FYI: Your electric bill consists of multiple parts. There is the kilowatt-hour charge. You will find this under the boldfaced “Power Supply Charges” on the back of your bill. Then there are the Delivery Charges, which are found below the Power Supply Charges. Like the Power Supply Charges, these are broken down into kWh charges.

House Energy Committee Emails

esleeper@house.mi.gov

TimSneller@house.mi.gov

DonnaLasinski@house.mi.gov

JosephBellino@house.mi.gov

DarrinCamilleri@house.mi.gov

TristonCole@house.mi.gov

ScottDianda@house.mi.gov

BrianElder@house.mi.gov

PatrickGreen@house.mi.gov 

BethGriffin@house.mi.gov

StevenJohnson@house.mi.gov

BeauLaFave@house.mi.gov

JamesLower@house.mi.gov

JohnReilly@house.mi.gov

JimTedder@house.mi.gov

DianaFarrington@house.mi.gov

LaTanyaGarrett@house.mi.gov

GaryGlenn@house.mi.gov

TomBarrett@house.mi.gov

Find your own state rep. Find your own state senator. 



Copy and paste list for all state reps.

Copy and paste list for state senators.

Emails for Michigan Senate Energy Committee

SenMNofs@senate.michigan.gov, senjproos@senate.michigan.gov, senkhorn@senate.michigan.gov, SenTSchuitmaker@senate.michigan.gov, senjhune@senate.michigan.gov, senmshirkey@senate.michigan.gov, sendzorn@senate.michigan.gov, senhhopgood@senate.michigan.gov, sendknezek@senate.michigan.gov, seniconyers@senate.michigan.gov

 

Commission Orders Hearing on Shut-Offs: March 2

DTE has been shutting off thousands of customers because the utility can't make its billing system work properly. "The evidence for thousands of improper shutoffs was so compelling that state regulators, in effect, said DTE Energy is guilty unless it can prove otherwise. The Michigan Public Service Commission ordered the utility's gas and electric providers “to prove they did not violate the Commission’s billing rules” when they switched to a new billing system in April," reported the Detroit Free Press and WZZM13.

The commission will hold a hearing beginning March 2. We need YOU to tell us if you have been improperly shut off (DTE Shut Me Off) or if your bill has gone up significantly (My Bill Has Gone Up Significantly).

Read the MPSC press release.

The Free Press/WZZM13 article talks about "mysterious illnesses" reported by people with smart meters, again portraying people as kooks, and has a lovely, and inaccurate press release statement from DTE, but at least the word is getting out.