Smart Meters Coming to Far West Texas Find Mixed Reception

Photo by KUT News.

A smart meter in action.

Millions of them have been installed in homes across Texas, but not everyone is happy about them. Smart meters, which allow allow utilities to respond to outages faster and help utilities and consumers monitor their energy use, have been deployed across much of the state at the urging of the state’s Public Utility Commission (PUC). By replacing old analog meters, the argument goes, grid efficiency is improved and utilities are saved a monthly trip to each home to record usage.

But now that the smart meters are making their way to smaller towns like Alpine in Far West Texas, more opposition is occurring. As Natalie Pattillo reports for Marfa Public Radio today, that opposition is coming from people concerned about “health risks from radioactive-frequency signals, a rise in electric bills, and consumer anxieties about the security of their information.” Some of the opposition has come from Tea Party groups and the Alex Jones InfoWars crowd. In at least one instance, a Texas town has come up with rules to allow people to refuse the meters: the town of Brady successfully passed a smart meter opt-out plan earlier this year.

After some of the opposition became vocal over the last few years, the Public Utility Commission has approved a plan that will allow Texans across the state to opt-out of the meters. But it will come at a price.

“The customers who opts-out will have to pay the costs that will be incurred to be able to do that,” says PUC Commissioner Kenneth Anderson. “We also will be requiring those customers to acknowledge in writing that they understand they will be losing some benefits from not having the smart meters.”

The PUC says claims of health risks from smart meters are “unwarranted.”