{"id":304,"date":"2018-06-29T06:21:47","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T11:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paenergyratings.com\/blog\/?p=304"},"modified":"2023-03-20T11:22:54","modified_gmt":"2023-03-20T16:22:54","slug":"rules-smart-meters-pennsylvania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paenergyratings.com\/blog\/rules-smart-meters-pennsylvania\/","title":{"rendered":"What are the Rules for Smart Meters in Pennsylvania?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Pennsylvania
Find out how smart meters affect your Pennsylvania electrcitiy usage. Learn waht the law says and if you can opt-out.<\/em><\/center><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

What are Smart Meters?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Smart meters keep track of your energy usage in 15 minute chunks. They then alert your utility about the power needs in your area. That way is your utility stops receiving a signal from your meter, then they know you aren\u2019t getting power. That way, they can respond faster even if you’re not home to know about it. As a result grid controllers and your utility know where energy is going and at what time. But what are the Pennsylvania electricity rules<\/a> for smart meters, anyway?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do I need a Smart Meter?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Pennsylvania Energy Act 129 (2008)<\/a> requires the local utilities to supply customers with smart meters. All seven Pennsylvania local utility companies<\/a> (PECO<\/strong>, Duquesne<\/strong>, PennElec<\/strong>, West Penn<\/strong>, Penn Power<\/strong>, PPL<\/strong>, and Met-Ed<\/strong>) are required to create energy efficient plans to reduce energy usage. One part of those plans is deploy Smart Meters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Do I Opt Out of Smart Meters.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, Pennsylvania law requires utilities to use smart meters measure home usage. The PUC PA<\/a> specifies that all consumers must<\/em> have a Smart Meter. As a result, customers must have a smart meter as a condition of service from your local utility. This also means all PA electricity consumers must pay the Smart Meter surcharge. Utilities will add it to monthly bills until they are fully deployed around 2023.\u00a0Of course, the surcharge is a pass through fee. Each local utility has its own meter cost recovery plan that must be approved by the PA PUC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PA Smart Meters Benefit You<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of the big problems with sending electricity over wires is \u201cline loss<\/a>\u201d. This comes from the wire\u2019s natural resistance to electricity. When wire resists the movement of electricity it gives off heat. The longer the wire, the more electrical resistance, and the more heat it produces. On hot summer days when there\u2019s high demand for electricity, power lines sag<\/a> because they are getting hotter and hotter. If they sag low enough to touch a tree, they can short out and cause a blackout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another problem with moving electricity during high demand periods is constraint. Because power lines get hot and stretch, they can only handle so much electricity at one time. Sometimes, grid dispatchers must route a lot of power through a power line that can\u2019t handle the full load. When that happens, generators must wait to transmit their electricity. As a result, generator get paid thousands of dollars to wait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smart meters allow your local utility to track demand and usage of energy. Grid dispatchers can send electricity the most efficient route to the area that needs it most. Smart meters also eliminate the need for people to go house to house to read meters. They also do a better way of stopping electricity theft.  So in the long haul, smart meters help keep electricity rates lower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Track Your Own Usage and Save!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re trying to cut your electric usage, tracking your electric usage in fifteen minute blocks can be very useful. And that’s especially true if you\u2019re using it to cut back on home energy hogs. Unfortunately, smart meters use a different wireless protocal to communicate with your utilty. That\u2019s why you can\u2019t communicate directly with yoru smart meter using your smart device or computer. However, many Pennsylvanian electricity suppliers<\/a> provide up to date information about your usage through your o line account. With the information of your usage, you can use electricity rates to predict how much you\u2019ll spend.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For information on energy providers that help you power your home more affordably this way, check out https:\/\/www.paenergyratings.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What are Smart Meters? Smart meters keep track of your energy usage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mbp_gutenberg_autopost":false},"categories":[2,3,26,4,5,57,6,7,8,9,47,11,59,13,35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paenergyratings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paenergyratings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paenergyratings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paenergyratings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paenergyratings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.paenergyratings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3287,"href":"https:\/\/www.paenergyratings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/3287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paenergyratings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paenergyratings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paenergyratings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}