High Electric Bill? Here is a possible solution!

Besides giving you heartburn from seeing an enormous electric bill, high bills and smart meters are often related. Smart meters can also cause more serious health problems you might not have realized. So why not consider a win-win? Get rid of the smart meter by "opting out" and improve your finances and health! This month, you must make a choice on which electricity pricing plan you will have, or SDG&E will do it for you.

San Diego Gas & Electric will automatically switch you to a TOU (Time-of-Use) plan starting this month (March, 2019), unless you tell them what type of rating plan you want. People are confused. If they pick a TOU plan, they can't use energy when they most need it, from 4-9PM daily. If they pick other plans, and/or exceed their monthly baseline allowances (the amount allotted to remain on the less expensive Tier), they could end up with large, or even huge, monthly bills, especially during hot weather. Last summer (2018), many people in Ramona reported bills from between $800 to $2,000 in just one month - that was July. Some had punitive "high usage" fees slapped onto their bills too, essentially doubling them. Yet we were experiencing 118 degree weather that would have killed some people without using AC. There was no pity or recourse from SDG&E, our utility. The message was, "You can choose when to use your energy." Well, actually, that is a lie. We can't choose to sit in 118 degree heat inside, or choose not to cook or have a few lights on then. Seniors can't even leave their homes in that heat, too dangerous.

So what to do? This year (2019), what you choose will greatly impact your upcoming bills, in the hot months, especially. Here are a few tips:

1. Know what each SDG&E pricing plan is like.

2. If you want to use energy when you get home from work or during 4-9 PM:

• Choose the Standard Rate Plan - just know that you can't exceed your baseline allowance or you'll pay very high rates.
• Know your baseline allowance. It appears on your bill and/or you can calculate it here.

3. Pick the plan that you think will best work for you.

4. Consider opting out from the SDG&E smart meters. The reasons are given in this article. If you opt-out and receive an old style electro-mechanical meter, you will be automatically placed on the Standard Rate Plan. You don't need to opt-out to be on the Standard Rate Plan, but there are other advantages to NOT having a smart meter.

5. Read your meter yourself, either online (if you have a smart meter) or if you opt-out, and have an analog meter, you can learn how on YouTube. Then you can track your usage and write the amount on the calendar or make a chart. You can keep your energy use lower by being informed. No surprises then, at the end of the month.

Did you know that smart utility meters such as used by SDG&E and some water companies can easily malfunction due to defective manufacture, interference from cell towers or other wireless devices, excessive heat, or cold? Many people, once they received a smart utility meter (not so smart) from their utility have noticed increased bills, sometimes very high - even when they were gone for a month or more. Smart meters use electricity to run, unlike the old analog electric (and gas) meters. SDG&E, like other utilities, claim that smart meters help keep your bill down, but this has been proven false in studies.

Everyone in San Diego County has a smart meter for natural gas and electric billing purposes, installed by SDG&E within the past 9 years, except those who've "opted out". I will explain. Want to check if you have one? Electric smart meters have a digital display, while electro-mechanical meters have dials (see photos for examples). This is not true for gas smart meters, which have dials - however, their face protrudes about three inches, rather than being flat, as a wireless device has been placed behind the dials.

Some people have also noted health impacts from the high pulsed microwave radiation from these wireless gadgets, usually made in China.

Smart utility meters also have been implicated as the cause of many house fires across our nation and Canada. The solution?

The CA Public Utility Commission, based on complaints from tens of thousands of people in CA within the first two years of installation, has ordered SDG&E to allow an "opt-out", which means you can get the "smart" meter off your property and have it replaced with a new version of the analog meter - fully electromechanical, no radiation, no fire hazard, and accurate.

Just call SDG&E and ask for a "smart meter opt-out", or fill out the SDG&E opt-out form online. It will cost $10 a month for three years, for the meter reader to come and read it as the smart meters don't need that, they're wireless and send the info like a cell phone. Your bill will be estimated every other month, and read every two months. Then after three years there is no more fee for the meter reader. It is also $75 to sign up for this different system with SDG&E, which may be paid in 3 installments. If you are on the CARE program for low income it is $10 to sign up and $5 per month, instead of the above. You may see a decrease in your bill that is significant, with an analog meter installed. If the estimate is ever too high, I simply pay what I think I should owe, and notify SDG&E, and then they "true it up" the next month with a true reading.

I especially like to avoid the rf radiation from the smart meters which was making me sick - the smart meter on our house was on our bedroom wall, right behind my headboard. The radiation was intense, pulsed, and equivalent to the exposure of 160 cell phones, according to one expert. I became "electro-sensitive" to rf radiation as a result - not a good thing. That was before the opt-out, which I helped obtain, to get the smart meter off my house, upon the advice of my physician.

Many SDG&E employees are opting out, too! They know that smart meters are not smart for them. But the general public doesn't know. You can help your family and your community by sharing this message.

Click here for more info on the opt-out and smart meter problems go to SDG&E's Opt-out info and www.electrosmogprevention.org, website for Center for Electrosmog Prevention, a San Diego-area 501c3 nonprofit which helped obtain the opt-out for CA, in 2012. I am the director.

Please be aware that utilities LOVE smart meters because:
1. Smart meters make them more money. That's how they gouge you using TOU plans.
2. They don't have to pay meter readers.
3. They can collect and sell the data for your household usage and patterns of use to third parties.
4. You have no recourse for higher bills, unlike with electro-mechanical ones you can read.
5. The utility can shut down your appliances (which now often come with chips that communicate with the smart meters) or electricity from their office at any time, remotely, using wireless communication to the smart meter.
6. Smart meters are used for time-of-use billing (you pay more per kwh during peak times). SDG&E is using this program as a default for all customers, starting in March, 2019, when they'll switch you to TOU unless you tell them you don't want it. In Canada, where they already have this time-of-use billing, some people decide to do laundry in the middle of the night to save money, they are being gouged so much during the daytime hours. Many in San Diego County experienced TOU last summer, ending up with astronomical bills.

Fight back and save $$ and health - opt-out!

Please share this info with your entire email list, neighbors, loved ones, and friends.