The smart meters, apparently, weren't that smart. They also were dangerous. They are being replaced by the not so smart, but reliable electrical meters we had before.
This back to the future electrical meter boondoggle will give pundits and critics a few more days of cynical harvests, and then we'll all move on to the next topic of the week as we wind down our summer on the prairies.
SaskPower is promising that ratepayers won't be paying for the $47 million error, but we figure taxpayers will. We are one and the same animal. The digging will shift from the right pocket to the left pocket, unless, of course, there is some legal recourse left available so that money can be recovered from either the manufacturer of the dumb meters, Sensus, an American firm, or the company contracted to do the installing.
We've all heard the numbers by now. There were about 105,000 installed meters with another 100,000 in storage, ready to be installed as the smart meter program rolled out across the province. Eight singed homes later, the 105,000 new meters are coming out within a nine-month period, to be replaced by old but safe technology.
We presume that at some point, after the financial debacle has faded into the background, our power company will take another stab at smart metering, using Canadian-made meters installed by SaskPower employees. But that will probably take some time because it will require a bit of recovery, both economically and socially.
Was the decision to remove all the smart meters a wise one? Politician Bill Boyd, the minister responsible for SaskPower, had no other recourse. No smart metered house burned down and nobody knows yet whether the fault was in the meter or in the installation procedures, but eight blackened meter boxes or vinyl sidings were enough to pull the $47 million trigger. One house fire would have spelled political disaster for the Sask Party, and Boyd and his teammates were well aware of how that game plays out on the court of public opinion. They couldn't wait for the investigation team that started looking into the cause of these minor fires on July 15 to complete the job. They couldn't afford to even give the appearance they were treating the problem lightly. Any faulty device or practice that deals with electricity is no light matter, not in the safety-first environment that SaskPower preaches every day. There can be no "it'll do" attitude on their front lines and eight toasted meters were enough.
The big questions remain.
How much, if any, can be recovered from the meter manufacturers, assuming that there were faulty construction materials or assemblies? What does SaskPower's contract with the manufacturer tell them? What does the contract with the installation company tell them? Besides lawyers, who will benefit from this fiasco? What will be learned? How long will this take to play out?
And although it is understood the whole process unfolded under the SaskPower banner, the decision to take this course of action, at this time, was definitely a political one. The provincial government understands they own this problem.
Might we supply one final question to the mix?
Where were the sensei's on this one? Were they so wrapped up on the health care and education fronts that they didn't see this one coming? Perhaps the Kaizen Promotion offices will issue a media release to provide their pontifications on this productio
