The Defining Issue in Energy Policy Today
Sheri Givens is President and CEO of the Smart Electric Power Alliance.
Years ago, when I served as the Texas utility consumer advocate, I spoke nearly every week with an 80-year-old Dallas-area woman named Ms. Berry.
Ms. Berry had intervened in a utility case before the commission involving a smart meter surcharge. The charge was about three dollars a month. In the broader context of grid modernization, it seemed small. But for Ms. Berry, those three dollars were significant.
She told me plainly that the surcharge could be the difference between buying a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, or paying for medication she needed. When the utility talked about the benefits of smart meters and new insights into electricity usage, she stopped me and said something I have never forgotten.
“I don’t need insights into my electricity,” she said. “I just need to be able to afford it.” At one point she even told me she would rather live by candlelight than continue paying for energy that she could not afford.
I connected Ms. Berry with low-income assistance and weatherization programs, which helped. But what she really needed, in that moment, was someone to listen to her and an avenue to make her voice heard in the regulatory process.
I think about Ms. Berry often when we talk about affordability in the energy sector today.