According to the plan, the deployment of the smart meter, which can track energy usage or power outage remotely thus eliminating the need for meter readers, will cost $198.3 million. It also comes with a $203.9 million budget for a customer information platform. The spending highlights the second part of Dominion's 10-year plan to add more renewable energy and increase energy efficiency in the state.
"As we bring more renewable energy onto our grid to build a cleaner future, and focus on increasing resiliency, we must modernize the way the system works," Charlene Whitfield, senior vice president of Power Delivery at Dominion Energy Virginia, said in a statement. Whitfield added that the decision "ensures that we can remain agile as a company to deliver the reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean energy that our customers want and expect."
The SCC had previously rejected Dominion's smart meter installation proposal twice due to high cost and the speculative nature of the plan. The smart meter rollout was approved in part because of a modified proposal that includes incentives for customers to reduce electricity use at times of high demand and a timeline to implement those rates system-wide.
Dominion eyes full deployment of smart grids for its 2.3 million residential customers by 2024.
However, many are against the use of smart meters for electricity, gas and water. An online documentary was produced about these devices in 2013.
Expensive, hazardous, privacy-invasive utility
Smart meters are considered expensive, hazardous and privacy-invasive utility. Worse, the high costs associated with purchasing, installing and replacing them are usually passed on to customers.
Environmental and consumer advocate group Appalachian Voices stated in a November 2021 filing that Dominion's request "falls woefully short of a reasonable and prudent standard." The group said that smart meter approval should have been conditioned on a requirement "to implement a universal peak-time rebate" as well as inclusion of the Connect-My-Data standard required in five other states, which enables standardized data collection.
Smart meters use 2.4 gigahertz microwave and 900 megahertz radiation for communications, similar to what microwave ovens, Wi-Fi routers and other wireless devices use.
Although consultants have computed the average electromagnetic radiation emitted by smart meters, they have not taken into account research showing that pulsed radio frequency radiation is harmful even at lower power. It is the spikes of pulsed energy and not the average power density that causes the harm to cellular structures. (Related: SILENT KILLER: Smart meters are destroying your health.)
And while the long-term cumulative exposures have been found to be harmful, they are not taken into consideration in the rollout of these devices. Smart meters can pulse up to 190,000 times a day, and they are on 24/7. The 2.4 gigahertz wireless technology frequencies pulse at 2.4 billion cycles per second. People everywhere are now exposed to continuous mix of man-made microwave frequencies.
Smart meters at home affect health
Smart meters at home have a particularly devastating effect on health as pulsed non-ionizing radiation is transmitted through household wiring, creating widespread local fields of what is called dirty electricity.
In 2006, the government in the state of Victoria, Australia, mandated the rollout of smart meters, exposing residents to human-made high-frequency non-ionizing radiation.
By August 2013, 142 people had reported adverse health effects from wireless smart meters by submitting information on an Australian public website using its health and legal registers. In a 2014 study involving the affected people, Dr. Federica Lamech pointed to the possibility that smart meters may have unique characteristics that lower people's threshold for symptom development.
The most common reported symptoms were insomnia, headaches, tinnitus, fatigue, cognitive disturbances, dysesthesia (abnormal sensation) and dizziness.
Watch the video below to learn about the effects of smart meters on blood.
This video is from the 195 Nations Rising channel on Brighteon.com.
Follow Radiation.news to learn more about the harmful effects of radiation on human health.
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