Electric smart meters—designed to show consumers exactly how much electricity they are using and when they are using it—have been hailed by utility giant PG&E as a revolution in how ratepayers receive their power. But PG&E has faced a host of technical problems, public misunderstanding and ratepayer backlash that cast doubt on the efficacy of the remote reading devices.

Residents are concerned that the smart meters give off harmful radiation, violate consumer privacy and increase power bills, as homeowners in other parts of California claim their utility rates have inexplicably gone up since the new devices were installed. Spokesmen for PG&E say smart meters are safe, reliable and will help slow global warming. The Fairfax Town Council and Bolinas Community Public Utility District have asked the California Public Utilities Commission to put the brakes on smart meters before PG&E begins installing them on thousands of Marin homes early next month.

“Their plan would put a meter on everyone’s home, in hospitals and businesses. And you don’t have a choice. You are going to be exposed to this radiation,” said Bolinas activist and documentarian Mary Beth Brangan.

Smart meters, which look similar to older power meters, will form a mesh network, relaying data from one house to the next until the signal reaches an access point, typically mounted on a utility pole. One house could be the conduit for data from thousands of homes in the neighborhood before it reaches the access point, which Brangan claims creates enough cumulative radiation to pose a serious health risk. “When those frequencies pass through your cells, they disrupt them on the DNA level and you see double-strand breaks, which are impossible for the body to repair,” she said. Brangan produced “Public Exposure: DNA, Democracy and the Wireless Revolution”,  a documentary about the effects of radio and electromagnetic frequencies on human beings.

The University of Washington, Seattle conducted a study in 1996 that showed DNA disruption in rat brain cells after exposure to massive doses of radiofrequency and electromagnetic radiation. These DNA disruptions, which break apart the double-helix, can cause brain tumors to form.

“The concern is that these things equate to cell phone towers times ten, and that the ambient electromagnetic and radio wave fields that will come out as a result of having these things at every house running constantly is an unforeseen health risk,” said Fairfax Mayor Lew Tremaine in an interview last month. “For people who are sensitive to electromagnetic radiation, it’s going to be a living nightmare.” Tremaine supports the Fairfax Town Council’s request for a statewide moratorium on the installation of smart meters.

The jury is still out on whether this type of radiation, which is essentially the same as that produced by cellular phones and cell towers, directly causes harm to humans. An inconclusive Interphone study released last month, the product of ten years of research by 13 nations, noted a slight increase in the risk of ipsilateral gliomas—or brain tumors—with daily cell phone usage.

While smart meters comply with FCC frequency regulations, Brangan believes the 30-year-old regulations are not stringent enough. “The standards are only set up to prevent you from being cooked like a hot dog in a microwave oven,” she said.

Swiss manufacturer Landis+Gyr, which produces the smart meters, as well as PG&E believe that current studies do not show any public health threat. “The World Health Organization hasn’t been able to find a correlation between these frequencies and human health,” said PG&E spokesman Paul Moreno. “Nevertheless, the FCC has frequency requirements, and the smart devices comply with all power density levels.” According to Moreno, a user would have to push their face up to the smart meter’s glass casing to get a frequency dose that exceeds FCC guidelines.

Moreno claims that the reports of the meters’ inaccuracy are largely false. “Getting a smart meter does not change your rates,” he said. “What happened was a combination of things. The 2009 summer months saw higher temperatures than the previous year, so people were using more electricity. I didn’t get a smart meter, and my bill went up too. Coincidentally, some of those people got smart meters around the same time. We did deep dives into those accounts, and that was by far the largest explanation we found.”

But PG&E did see software glitches and broken components in at least 43,000 of the first smart meters, though few of the broken devices adversely affected monthly utility bills. In most cases, a software glitch reset the readings to zero, which canceled out the user’s recorded power consumption and actually reduced cost. Moreno also says that some ratepayers owned decades-old power meters that were drastically undercharging them for electricity.

Moreno claims that only ten out of three million smart meters overcharged customers. “They’re pretty easy to spot,” he said.

Privacy is another concern of both ratepayers and utility workers. “Community members are concerned that PG&E will be able to remotely control the usage in individual homes and businesses by restricting or turning off service during peak demand periods without the consent of customers,” wrote Bolinas Community Public Utility District manager Jennifer Blackman in a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission. The district has asked for a moratorium on the installation of smart meters until the program’s implications for individual privacy are better understood.

Brangan worries that the meters can reveal intimate details about customers’ habits, such as when they eat, sleep or how much television they watch. “They’re collecting all this data, and there are agencies and corporations that want to buy that data,” she said. For example, an insomniac might get up frequently throughout the night, which would show power spikes from using lights, the refrigerator and television. This data could be used to target the ratepayer with advertisements for sleeping pills and luxury mattresses.

While ceding that this is technically possible, PG&E claims it will not profit from the sale of customer information. “We have a large number of protocols in place to protect customer information, and the California Public Utility Commission already has laws in place that doesn’t allow us to disclose information without the customer’s approval,” Moreno said. “That information is between you and PG&E.”

The vastly increased amount of personalized data, Moreno claims, is to help the ratepayer make better-informed decisions about personal energy consumption. “Imagine if credit card companies just gave you a lump sum at the end of the month, showing how much you spent,” he said. “The smart meters will show you exactly how much power you used, and when you used it.”  By 2012, PG&E plans to have nearly ten million smart meters in operation.

Residents can find out when they are scheduled for smart meter installation, ask questions or register concerns at PG&E’s smart meter hotline at (866) 743.0263.