SaskPower's Smart Meter recall project has begun, with the $47 million dollar recall of all units in the field beginning this week.
Robert Watson, SaskPower President and CEO says that meters failing is an inevitability as infrastructure ages, but the Smart Meters are being recalled because of the way they fail, which is dangerous.
"Our issue with the Smart Meters is when a fault happened they would literally burn, outside of the meter itself... That was our concern, not that a fault would happen, but what happens when a meter would fault it should be contained within the meter."
The current digital meters have a failure rate of approximately 60 a year, which Watson says is acceptable given the number of meters in service and the factors that cause failures.
A tenth fire connected to a Smart Meter occurred in Regina over the weekend, but Watson says in this case the fire and smoke was contained within the case, meaning it was not at the same level of danger as the meter failures which prompted the recall. This failure was in the socket rather than the meter itself.
"If the meter is impacted they should stay intact, and that one did."
Installers are undergoing extra safety training right now to reinforce the standards for meter installation, Watson says, and will be inspecting the sockets that the meters plug into as they are replaced with the digital meters. He notes that homeowners will not be responsible for the costs incurred if the socket needs replacement.
Watson says that the investigation into the incident is ongoing and will be available as soon as it is complete. Watson says that SaskPower wants to be as open and transparent as possible through the process.
The focus at the moment is to get the current Smart Meters out of the system. When that is complete, Watson says, there will be a stringent test of several manufacturers with different meters, done in the province, with independent verification of results. He says that the first time around there was also a similar, independently verified test of the meters.
"We've done our job and we've done our due diligence so that's why we're very open to an independent review of what's gone on."
No meters were installed in Yorkton and area, the project was focused in Regina and Saskatoon and the surrounding regions.
