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Co-ops, utilities tell Vermont committee RF smart meters improve service but complicate free opt-outs
Summary
Witnesses told the House Energy committee that radio-frequency smart meters give utilities better outage detection and new rate options but cannot be turned off like legacy meters; utilities and a rural co-op said customers can opt out but recovering manual-read costs will likely require a PUC tariff and could mean opt-out customers pay roughly $10–$11 monthly (estimate).
Lewis Porter, general manager of Washington Electric Co-op, told the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee that his rural cooperative is switching from power-line-carrier meters to radio-frequency (RF) meters to improve outage detection, power-quality data and enable new rate designs.
Porter said the co-op received a $2.5 million federal grant arranged by Senator Sanders to modernize metering and has finalized grant paperwork and is closing a vendor contract. He described power-line-carrier meters as adequate for basic billing but limited in providing timely outage and quality diagnostics; RF meters, he said, support mesh networking among meters and richer data for members and the utility.
Porter explained a key operational difference affecting customers who currently opt out: with the co-op's legacy meters the utility could leave the meter off and read it once a month, but RF meters are designed to participate in a mesh network and cannot be taken entirely offline in the same way. “Under the RF meters…you can have one that has no smart meter capabilities. We turn that we eliminate that provision all together,” Porter said, describing the technical limitation.
While Porter said he supports customers' right to opt out, he opposed charging the entire membership to cover the added manual-reading cost. He said the co-op plans to present a tariff to the Public Utility Commission (PUC) to recover the average cost of manual meter reads for opt-out customers rather than shifting that cost across all members. Porter offered a back-of-envelope estimate of about $10–$11 per month per opt-out meter but emphasized any tariff would be based on actual costs and PUC review.
Representatives pressed witnesses about statutory constraints. Committee members noted Vermont law currently provides no-cost opt-outs; witnesses said that while they would typically pursue a PUC tariff to recover costs, a statutory requirement for free opt-outs would limit that path.
A Green Mountain Power representative, Morgan, said GMP also supports customers' ability to opt out but that any fee would require a tariff filing and review by the Department of Public Service and the PUC. Morgan said GMP has historically had about 8,000 customers with opt-outs and that manual reads impose significant driver-time and logistics burdens. She also noted customers who opt out often lack access to time-of-use rates, energy-storage and EV programs that require smart-meter data.
Committee members asked technical follow-ups including RF frequency and wattage, possible meter-placement options (pole-mounted meters), and alternatives such as member self-reading with periodic true-ups; witnesses said they would provide technical specifics and stressed trade-offs between privacy preferences and access to new programs.
The committee did not vote on S.213 during this hearing; members said they would reconvene shortly for an internal committee discussion about next steps and any additional testimony.
