We encourage customers with questions or concerns to contact us directly so we can assist them as quickly as possible.”
On the whole, the smart meters are making it easier for our customers to monitor their energy usage and control their costs. “There have been isolated cases of billing issues, but they are rare. “Con Edison has installed nearly 3.8 million smart meters since 2017,” a spokesperson says. “Their estimates are extremely frustrating,” Zafran says, “especially when they go on for six months, because that means that someone is putting aside money for these bills – only to find out several months later that they're in the hole for another $20,000 because the meters weren't reading information properly.”Īnd it’s unclear how seriously the utility is taking these issues. Which can lead to an unpleasant surprise: If Con Edison’s estimates are based on historical data from old, worn-out meters that may have been inaccurate, when the actual bills are sent to consumers, they may end up being much higher than expected. Instead, the bills were just estimated reads.” “That means even though the meters are recording data, they may not be communicating the data properly to Con Edison, so the bills that are sent to customers won't reflect those readings. “Let's say a smart meter was installed at the beginning of the year for a period of up to six months, it may not be able to sync with the Con Edison billing system,” says Alexander Zafran, senior consultant and business development lead at Aurora Energy Advisors. There is an occasional disconnect between the smart meters and the utility’s billing system. The result is inaccurate usage readings, meaning inaccurate electricity bills – and a potential shock when the new, more accurate meters are installed.īut more accurate meter readings aren’t the only surprise potentially in store for Con Edison customers.
“Friction affects the rotating speed of the disc, which is the accuracy of the meter, so they get slower over time,” says Eric Jacobsen, communications manager at Quadlogic Controls, a submetering and energy services company. The old electricity meters were mechanical, with a small disc inside that rotates. The future is now here, and it’s not quite what users imagined. The new meters would transmit readings on an ongoing basis, rather than being read monthly by a Con Edison employee. The smart meters promised to deliver hands-on knowledge about exactly how much energy a building – or apartment – was using every day. In 2017, Con Edison announced that over the next five years it planned to replace nearly 5 million electricity meters with smart meters, digital devices that transmit energy consumption to Con Edison via a secure wireless network.
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