Some residents balk at new meters, others welcome the new technology

Perri Beard is among a group of residents who are not impressed with the city of Longmont’s plans to deploy new smart meters to read energy usage in homes and businesses.

These residents see the city’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure, or AMI, as an untested and potentially dangerous technology that pushes dangerous radiation into the air. They also do not see why they have to pay to opt out of the AMI program.

“I think it’s outrageous,” said Beard, a 35-year resident of Longmont. “I don’t want any more technology in my home. And why is the city getting away with charging citizens $125 for opting out of the new meters? They are charging us for not doing any work. I just don’t understand.”

Another resident — Kim Edmonson — told the city council last week that city leaders seem to be ignoring the “invisible dangers” posed by smart meters. Edmonson said her cell phone also emits radiation but she can decline to use her phone. “... But I won’t be able to shut off your smart meters and I sure as hell can’t afford to opt out of them either.”

Other residents said the AMI program will be a boon for the city and customers. AMI captures the energy use of a home or business more accurately than traditional meters and instead of being read once a month, an AMI system reads itself for a few seconds every hour, supporters say.

The system will lead to lower costs and more efficiency, Lynette McClain told the city council. “With shorter trips and the number of vehicles on the road reduced, the utility will reduce vehicle maintenance needs, fuel consumption and tailpipe emissions,” she said. 

Karen Dike, co-chair of Sustainable Resilient Longmont’s Renewable Energy Committee, said fears of radiation emissions are “completely unfounded.”

The $14 million rollout of the city’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure, or AMI, will begin in spring 2022 with an initial deployment of 500 electric meters in southern Longmont, said Scott Rochat, spokesman for Longmont Power & Communication, the city’s utility provider.

After that first phase, LPC expects to begin a citywide rollout of the new meters near the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023, taking about a year to complete the program, Rochat said. 

Electric rate adjustments were made in 2020 and 2021 to cover the cost and no tax dollars are being used to build the system, according to a city of Longmont news release.

The city council unanimously approved the opt-out plan for residents last week with little comment. The vote signaled the start of the AMI conversion which will be steady since all the city’s meters are being replaced, Rochat said.

For most customers, their old meters will be swapped out for a new AMI meter, he said via email. For those who opt out, the old meter will be replaced with a newer manually-read meter.

When crews are going to be installing meters in an area, the residents will get a heads-up from  the utility, Rochat said.  At that point, residents will get a two-week window where they contact Longmont Power and say they want a manually-read meter instead, Rochat said. 

When they do, the utility will install that meter for $50. The $125 fee is only charged to residents who decide to opt out after that two-week period, Rochat said.

In both cases, the charge helps cover some of the labor costs for installing a manually-read meter, he said. 

“If a customer waits longer than two weeks before choosing to opt out, it’s almost certain that a new AMI meter has already been installed,” Rochat said. “That means an installer has to come back out to remove one meter and install another, hence the higher charge.”

The $15 per month charge helps cover the ongoing cost of having a meter reader physically drive to the site, check the meter, drive back and upload the data, as opposed to having the advanced meter remotely report the data itself, Rochat said.

Meanwhile, older hand-read meters are steadily being phased out in favor of AMI, according to the city news release. As of 2020, U.S. electric utilities had nearly 103 million AMI installations, according to the U.S. Energy Administration.

The introduction of AMI, Dike said, is another “21st Century tool to keep pace with the rapidly changing world.”