Smart Meter Installation A Safety Issue: Carlucci

NEW CITY, Ny — State Senator David Carlucci visited local homeowners in New City Friday to highlight a consumer protection issue, saying his office has received several calls about fires starting when Smart Meters were installed by Orange and Rockland Utilities. O&R officials said the meters are safe and reliable and installation problems have been rare.

"This is simply an issue of safety, we need Orange and Rockland to use their best practices when these Smart Meters are being installed. Thankfully we have only seen minor damage so far but we need to make sure these installations are done properly to prevent more dangerous fires from happening."said Carlucci (D-Rockland/Westchester), talking with homeowner Howard Lerner, who provided this photo of the result of his installation.

But O&R officials said smart meters are proven safe and reliable. Nationwide, there are about 70 million smart meters installed.

Since mid-June, O&R has installed 53,173 smart meters. None of the O&R smart meter installations have resulted in fires.

There have been four instances of flashovers during installation, said O&R spokesman Mike Donovan. Two of those were the result of installer error and two were the result of faulty equipment. No fire resulted from the flashovers and no one was injured. O&R has received six claims for what customers believe has been damage to their household appliances as a result of smart meter installation. Of those claims investigated thus far, there has been no correlation found between the appliance damage and the smart meter's operation. The claims were for: two stoves, one light fixtures, one power strip, one computer and one printer.

Meanwhile, installation of smart meters in Rockland County is proceeding on schedule.

Since the installation began in Rockland July 20, as of Dec. 29, O&R’s crews and contractors have installed approximately 53,000 smart meters in the county. Between 300 and 500 meters are installed each day.

O&R plans to install the communications infrastructure in Orange County beginning in January 2018 and the meters in March of 2018 with 112,650 meters over a three-year period.

Donovan said smart meters are expected to:

• Allow customers to better control their energy costs and participate in various energy efficiency and/or demand response programs. Customers will be able to see where and why their consumption increases or decreases and can take action to reduce their bills.
• Facilitate quicker restoration of service after a storm event by communicating the precise location of service interruptions
• Reduce costs for meter reading and customer field services, as well as the costs associated with back-office operations required to handle customer billing inquiries
• Enhance the planning and operation of the electric grid by providing operators and engineers with detailed data on system conditions
• Generate usage data that is key to the overall operation of the smart grid.

O&R plans to install 230,000 electric smart meters in its New York service area by the end of 2020. In O&R’s New Jersey service area where it is known as Rockland Electric Company, smart meter development is scheduled to begin in January 2018 and take about two years before smart meters are provide to its 72,000 customers.

PHOTOS/ Sen. David Carlucci's Office, Howard Lerner