i’ve been fighting pg&e smart meters since their inception.
You are lucky. Where I live we had no option, looked out one day and the power co. were installing the new meter. And now I learn we will be paying what they call, ‘peak power”. April first, from nine cent per kilowatt to twenty seven cent per kilowatt from the hours of four PM to twelve midnight.
We are part of TVA which uses coal fired power plants. Obrainless has ordered all Coal fired plants closed within the next two years. I suppose we will have to learn to crawl onto a rock to stay warm during the Winter months, and find a cave to stay cool in the Summer?
Just to clarify, Odipsh#t hasn't ordered all coal plants closed, but his EPA cronies have squeezed environmental regulations to the point that it doesn't make economic sense to install the necessary (?) emissions controls on many older, less-efficient coal-fired generating units. TVA will be retiring (and has already started) a sizeable portion of its older coal generating fleet, but they have systematically been replacing much of that with gas-fired turbine and combined-cycle gas/steam generating units. The upside is that gas is presently cheap. The downside is that it isn't going to be cheap forever and it makes little sense to put too many eggs in one basket.
Other utilities across the country are doing the same, possibly to the detriment of reliability on the electric grid. If the economy ever recovers for real, things could be pretty dicey in the power industry.
BTW, who's your power distributor? The idea of 27 cent/KWH power is pretty danged horrible. Especially during the hours when you need to run the AC the most.