(MPRN-Lansing) Utilities shouldn’t be able to penalize customers for keeping old versions of their meters. That’s the intent of legislation in Lansing up for committee vote this week.
If you don’t use a new smart meter, Consumers Energy currently requires you to pay an additional fee for maintenance of the old analogue meters. But some lawmakers say that’s not fair.
Republican Representative Gary Glenn says it’s partly a privacy issue.
“I don’t think it’s any of my business, I don’t think it’s any of the government’s business why somebody doesn’t want certain technology installed in their home.”
Consumers Energy currently charges customers an initial fee of about $70 dollars if a smart meter hasn’t been installed and a monthly fee of about $10 to keep their old meter.
It says the penalty is necessary, otherwise the cost of maintaining the old meters will get passed on to all other customers.