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Kudos to Hydro

B.C. Hydro has just over 1.8 million customers throughout 92 per cent of the province.

I take exception to letter-writer Linda Ewart’s interpretation of the installation of Smart meters, as cited in the Aug. 9 News.

B.C. Hydro has just over 1.8 million customers throughout 92 per cent of the province. Three per cent of their customer base is 54,000, which is a number that should not be ignored, and is not by the corporation as they have undertaken an outstanding customer relations program to reduce the fears that benignly ignorant customers have had about the new meters.

While Ewart cites 200,000 B.C. residents having complained to the corporation that they do not want the highly effective Smart meters, most of them have had their concerns addressed and are no longer upset with the fabricated lies put forward by a few zealots who know nothing about this type of metering.

The meter on your home belongs to B.C. Hydro, which has legislative power to have the meter read and to change the meter as it sees fit.

The corporation does not need the property owner’s permission to enter onto the property nor to change the meter.

But they are being good corporate citizens by embarking on a sound communications program to inform customers of their rationale for the change – to save energy and to save customers money.

A letter posted on the outside wall of your home advising a B.C. Hydro employee of your concerns has no legal weight whatsoever. The corporation has no legal compulsion, nor moral for that matter, to accede to your request.

The installation of Smart meters ‘in toto’ is the most effective way for the corporation to gain a better handle on energy usage as we have had a provincial government which has not listened to the corporation and we may well find ourselves importing energy from Alberta or the United States, as we have had to do nearly a decade ago.

Ewart must learn, by reading appropriate legislation, that B.C. Hydro can install a Smart meter as it sees fit – and kudos for the corporation for doing so.

 

G.E. MacDonell