BC Hydro representatives argued that adopting wireless smart meters is necessary to transfer power from diverse sources to wherever it is needed and delivers over $500 million of “net positive benefits.”

Fiona Taylor, deputy project director for BC Hydro’s smart-metering program laid out the business reasons for supporting the meters and benefits to consumers in a presentation to the Merritt and District Chamber of Commerce board Nov. 21.

She and Cindy Verschoor, BC Hydro’s communications manager for smart metering, delivered a similar presentation to the City of Merritt mayor and council earlier that day.

Taylor told the board that BC Hydro required smart meters to measure how much and when power is used in any given location.

With that information, BC Hydro could determine demand depending on the time of day and move electricity to where it is needed when it is needed.

“We don’t have that two-way self-healing capability on that grid,” she said.

“You can’t control it if you can’t measure it.”

Taylor added that the new system’s flexibility would allow BC Hydro to transfer electricity from smaller power producers like the developing Merritt Green Energy Project to anywhere in the Crown corporation’s grid.

“There’s a lot of communities that want to do local economic development as well as local sustainability.”

She said the current system of electromechanical meters was adopted in the 1960s and can only provide a single measurement: total electrical consumption.

“You can’t control it if you can’t measure it.”

With the additional information provided by the smart meters, BC Hydro could reduce the energy supply and capacity so they do not have to keep up with demand at its peak.

“We can actually manage the supply so it is closer to the demand, and that results in tremendous cost savings.

“It reduces the pressure on rates.”

Taylor said that taking all of the costs and savings of adopting smart meters, including tracking $100 million in electricity theft a year, showed that benefits ultimately outweighed drawbacks by $500 million.

In addition to saving money on building electricity infrastructure, BC Hydro could more quickly and precisely identify and correct outages, thereby reducing manpower costs, she said.

Addressing health concerns, Taylor repeated BC Hydro’s oft-recorded statements regarding the effects, frequency, and intensity of the wireless smart meters’ signals.

Taylor said the signals emitted from a smart meter over a 20-year lifetime were equivalent to a single 30-minute cellphone call.

She said the smart meters are specifically designed to emit a signal of two microwatts per square centimetre.

She added that is only half the strength of the most stringent standard BC Hydro could find, 4.5 microwatts per square centimetre, from a Swiss regulation for areas near hospitals and schools, and 300 times less than Health Canada’s Safety Code 6, which mandates a maximum strength of 600 microwatts per square centimetre. 

“The only thing lower on the electromagnetic spectrum is the electromagnetic waves coming off the power lines themselves.”

Planet Works, a consulting company, had tested both a single meter over two days as well as a bank of meters for the same length of time in the field to simulate real-world conditions, she said.

In the case of the single meter, it sent signals for a total of three seconds while the bank of meters sent out signals for a total of 20 seconds, Taylor said.

She also said exposure from the meter banks does not increase with the number of meters in a bank.

“It doesn’t matter if you’ve got 10 meters or 40 meters in a row, their profile will be about the same.”

Taylor rebutted statements from smart-meter opponents that emissions from the devices peak at certain times, thereby causing greater risk due to a “spike” in a digital signal.

While the smart meters do collect digital data, they convert that information into an analogue, not digital, signal when sending it to collection points, said Taylor.

Asked if BC Hydro had accounted for potential effects from smart-meter signals on the electrical impulses in the human body, Taylor said the question should be directed to medical professionals.

However, she said that World Health Organization studies could find no correlation between exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields and health problems.

Chamber director Rob Miller said, “It’s a great pitch…but it doesn’t give me any information about how you’re responding to concerns.”

He suggested that BC Hydro create a list of the most-asked questions about smart meters from consumers and the company’s responses.

Taylor said BC Hydro has delayed installation in cases where customers have expressed concerns about smart meters and will speak to them individually in an effort to address those concerns.

Nevertheless, she said no smart meters have been uninstalled. In her presentation, Taylor said third-party meter manufacturers had not invested in wired smart-meter technology.

“You can’t meter shop and pick what device you want to use.”

She said 330,000 smart meters have been installed provincewide thus far and over 99 per cent of customers have accepted them.