RI Commissioner tries to slow smart meter deployment
August 2013
Rhode Island - Commissioner Paul J. Roberti doesn't believe smart meters "come close" to justifying their costs and are an ill-advised, unrealistic attempt to modify consumer behavior.
Roberti says, "You know what? The markets, the structure of pricing is
not there," he says. "These people (meter proponents) want to push all
this stuff-I call them behavior-modification specialists--forcing things
on consumers that don't come naturally. You can't get consumers to
fully embrace this unless you give them economic pain, which I won't do.
If these things are going to happen, they should happen on their own.
We shouldn't go around and frontload all these costs. There's just not
enough of a natural market mechanism to do this. I don't like when
regulators are trying to force things."
In neighboring Massachusetts Attorney General (AG) Martha Coakley's
office wrote a letter to the state's Department of Public Utilities
(DPU) Commission, expressing skepticism that smart meters justify their
costs. "Despite these clear trends, [National Grid] proposes to launch a
massive pilot at great ratepayer expense to test already tested
hypotheses."