By SAMANTHA HEARN

Nashville Electric Service is gradually switching from analog meters to digital meters, and some people in Brentwood are concerned that it might raise the price of their electric bill and even cause health problems.

Analog meters are no longer manufactured, prompting NES to make the switch to the latest technology, AMI meters. These ‘smart meters’ resemble conventional electric meters, but the energy usage is captured wirelessly on a daily basis, meaning meter readers do not have to enter a customer’s property every month.

It’s a two-way communication with the electric grid that NES officials said improves service and power reliability for customers, and helps NES better manage the energy load on its system.

“We currently have 41 percent of customers with analog meters on our system, 10 percent with digital Encoder Receiver Transmitter meters and 49 percent with the latest technology – AMI meters,” NES Corporate Communications Supervisor Laurie Parker said. “This slow rollout could take between three to seven years.”

The meter upgrades are happening over various parts of the NES service area, including in Brentwood. A group of Brentwood residents said recently when they had questions about the meters, NES customer service representatives told them they would check into it and that they would get back to them within 48 hours.

However, that never happened.

“They did not get back to us,” Brentwood residents Natalia and Norman Smothers wrote in an email to Brentwood Home Page. “When we did not hear from them we sent emails asking about their smart digital meters.”

Several of the Smothers’ neighbors have had NES installation crews come to their home and install, or try to install, a smart digital meter on their home, apparently without “any written consent or disclosure of the technology.”

The Smothers are concerned about potential hazards caused by the smart meters.

“If you’ve been following the rollout of smart digital meters in other states, there have been many issues and concerns including fire hazards, wide-spread reports of adverse health problems, monthly electric bills spiking up by about 40 percent, privacy issues, decline in house values, etc.,” the Smothers said. “We feel there are big liability issues here. However, NES has not disclosed any of these liabilities and has not offered to the customers any insurance nor compensation to cover these liabilities.”

Parker said all meters being used by NES meet safety standards approved by the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates radio frequency emissions nationally. They also follow American National Standards Institute radio frequency standards.

“The radio frequencies emitted by AMI meters are much lower than cell phones, cordless phones or baby monitors,” Parker said. “In addition, the data we receive from AMI meters is no different than the information we currently have access to. The only change is that it is remotely reported to NES daily rather than once a month.”

NES officials told Brentwood Home Page customers are notified by mail before the switch out takes place, and NES has a temporary deferral option to allow customers to opt-out of receiving an AMI meter for a monthly fee to cover the cost of sending a meter reader.

The opt-out contract is temporary for an unspecified duration with a meter switch-out fee of $141 and a monthly meter reading fee of $32. There’s also a requirement that the customer agree to the installation of an NES smart digital meter at the end of the opt-out period.

“In other words, NES’ opt-out contract requires customers to give up all customer rights and accept ultimate installation of a smart digital meter in exchange for an expensive temporary delay in the installation of the smart/digital meters,” the Smothers said. “We find this quite unfair.”

The technology supporting AMI meters is accurate, according to NES, and they also “remove the risk for human error when reading the customer’s usage.”

“Customers should not notice any difference in their bill as a result of the switch unless they happened to have an old analog meter that was malfunctioning or running slow,” Parker said.

According to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a total of 138 million AMI meters have been installed in the U.S., which is nearly 38 percent of all meters on the nation’s electric system.

For customers who want to request an AMI deferral form, they can call NES Customer Relations at 615-736-6900.

Samantha Hearn reports for Home Page Media Group. She can be reached via email at samantha@brentwoodhomepage.com or on Twitter @samanthahearn.