Do you think maybe 100 or so test meters would have been a good plan before they set about installing 105,000 of them?
Yeesh... SaskPower has announced it will be spending roughly $15 million to remove new "smart" meters that apparently aren't so smart and replacing them with the older version. The process is expected to take up to nine months and obviously will involve plenty of manpower dollars. Not to mention all the money that was spent on buying the new equipment in the first place and the costs of labour to get the 105,000 units set up.
So after all this, to date there has been at least eight smart meter failures over the past two months that have reportedly caused fires. This in turn prompted the province to put on hold any plans for future installations. Following a brief investigation, government has announced it has decided the new technology has to go.
I get that we need to upgrade from time to time and that equipment can't last forever, but from all that I've read about this it makes a person wonder why we went this route in the first place? The manufacturer of the smart meter reportedly has a poor track record. The units have failed in the past in numerous US cities which are now also trying to recoup their losses. Isn't this something we should have really checked into before making the call to go ahead?
"What I see is a disgusting waste from this government. I see mismanagement. This was entirely preventable," says NDP deputy leader Trent Wotherspoon adding, it would be "unacceptable" for ratepayers' money to go toward recouping the cost of the meters.
And I'm sure this is something that's weighing on the minds of a great number of taxpayers. A higher than already sky high power bill isn't going to be a welcome option.
"Government has a lot of answering to do. They've failed Saskatchewan people on this file... government has to get it right," adds Wotherspoon. "They can't put people at risk. They have to make sure they know what they're buying."
And that they do. We obviously looked at replacements for a reason, and now we're reinstalling that same old technology that needed replacing in the first place. For the sake of our wallets and our safety, let's make sure we get work to get this right.
