Why the disaffection with smart meters? You want juice, you get metered.
The meter belongs to the power company. They provide the juice, they own the meter. It is simply not a customer decision.
There are various kinds of smart meters.
1) Some just transmit electric usage, to avoid having to have a person physically come over to read it.
2) Some additionally have remote control features, which allow the attachment of remote-controlled plugs to things like your central air conditioner, that allow the utility to remotely shut it off if they have a brown-out condition.
The Florida meters under discussion seem to be type 1. However, there is nothing stopping them from being turned into type 2 at some point in the future. What would happen is that customers would be offered a "discount" if they allowed their major appliances to be put on controlled circuits. A lot of people don't like the idea of their power being controlled like that.
And then they decide that everyone needs to raise their AC thermostats to 85 degrees to save power, or during the winter, everyone’s thermostat gets lowered to 60 degrees for 12 hours a day and they flip a switch and make it so. I would have a problem with that.
They have a monopoly, I have no choice but to use THEM for “my juice” therefore now I have no say in how much of my activity they can “monitor”. You want them to do that for you, fine, not me. Got it.
Smart meters are unhealthy to the occupants of the home. I let them put one in (meter is behind master bedroom of our home) and experienced sleepless nights and other health problems. I opted out and had them install the old meter type. My electric bill with smart meter increased by approximately 15 percent... since getting the old meter back...I am right at past usage. I did however get a bit of flack from SCE... over-billing and lack of cooperation with dispute of the bill. I think they ripped me off for about 75 bucks over that dispute, but they refuse to work with you, they don’t have to and they know it. Smart meter is all about challenging your lying eyes. Give me the old meter technology on anything.. new tech is manipulated much too easily..