Ive lost at least 100 hours over the past year to wrangling with Hydro One over their insane billing & horrible customer service. To the thousands of Ontario residents who have fallen victim to this Goliaths bogus billing system, faulty smart meters, & bullying tactics, the Ontario Energy Board will be of little help to you. Ive gone that route, only to discover that they lack the truly independent oversight and the enforcement tools to ensure this utilitys compliance with the rules. How can anyone expect the OEB to regulate a utility when, in a hearing conducted by letter at Hydro Ones request, (and hence, beyond public scrutiny) the man at the OEB who sets electricity rates granted Hydro One an additional two year exemption on having to network 135,000 smart meters in rural & remote areas (with the possibility that this exemption will be extended indefinitely)? A non-networked smart meter must be read by a meter reader before an accurate bill can be provided and cannot be migrated to Time-Of-Use rates. Yet, in some of the very rural & remote areas where Hydro One has gotten permission not to network the smart meters until a cost-effective solution can be found, the utility has been neglecting to send meter readers to properties to obtain actual readings at least once annually. Worse, according to a smart meter manufacturer, non-networked smart meters will result in significant billing discrepancies, as utilities typically must calibrate the meters Real Time Clocks periodically to ensure the accuracy of consumption readings. Im sending all of the information Ive obtained through my year of research to the Ombudsman. Hydro One needs a good shake-up, and if theyre not going to network those 135,000 smart meters, they should be forced to replace them with analog meters, which dont need to be networked to maintain their accuracy, and generally dont fail in sub-zero temperatures, as my first smart meter did.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 16:46:52 +0000
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