This afternoon(Monday , 8/15/2011) I listened to an interview between Nationwide News Network Cliff Hughes, the manager of JoJo's and Dr Hamilton of the SME's in Jamaica.
The subject was high utility rates being experienced by both residential as well as SME member, KVA demand charges and the new smart meters being installed by the JPS.
I have already addressed the KVA demand charges and while I hear people saying JPS is "wicked" in the way demand charges have been applied, its not different from how all other utilities applies this charge. In fact its very consistent, and what many seem not to have recognized, is that JPS has in fact lowered the penalty from 11 months to 5 months.
As it relates to the new smart meter, the Jamaican experience has been identical to what customers of Portland, Electric and Gas (PG&E) in Texas experienced when that company started installing these new meters.
See the following link.
http://www.smartmeters.com/the-news/690-pgae-smart-meter-problem-a-pr-nightmare.html
As you can see from the above link, the Jamaican situation is almost exactly the same, read my post " New electronic meters could mean higher electricity bills to see why".
Now the problem has been so bad and complaints have been so fast coming that a consulting company was brought in to commission a study to explore wether or not these complaints where real ie where these new meter accurate and were they recording more than the old electromechanical analog meters.
The summary of the document in the Texas experience suggest that customers consumption patterns tends on increase around certains periods of the year , which is the same point in time that the cost of the utlilty charges were usually higher. In effect the customers say significant increases in there bills due to their consumption pattern vs over recording of the new meters.
I have attached a copy of the document for your perusal, its over 170pgs long and as is the case with many Jamaicans we simply refuse to read, thus we always tend to be a victim, as we are an uninformed society.
Recently I wrote to a company offering free service of analysis of their utility bill after seeing their complaint, three weeks later they have refused to take up the offer which is no longer on the table.
We can either chose to complain or on the other hand chose to educate ourselves thus allowing us to be more strident customers , who makes better decisions as it relates to the operations of our homes or businesses, the choice is yours.
See the link below " Evaluation of advanced (smart) meters.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_NeVEvMNIivZDU3ODc2YWItN2M3Ny00YmQzLWJmODYtNmFkOTAwYzhlOTg0&hl=en_US
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