The city clashed with the state’s largest utility company in 2012 over whether its residents should have the opportunity to refuse installation of Central Maine Power Co.’s “smart meters.”

The story was the No. 9 most important to Times Record editors and readers in 2012, according to an informal poll.

The Bath City Council defeated an ordinance this month that would have solidified a yearlong moratorium on the meters.

The 5-3 vote on Dec. 5 effectively terminated two consecutive 180-day moratoriums on installation of the meters without customer approval. The first moratorium — one of the first in the nation — went into effect Dec. 7, 2011.

Bath was one of the only municipalities in the nation to enact controls on the meters that allow Central Maine Power Co. to monitor power usage remotely. Opponents say the equipment has the potential to start fires, affect medical devices and invade privacy.

The Public Utilities Commission addressed those and other questions in 2010 and ruled the meters posed no health threats.

But in July, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court sided with opponents — led by Ed Friedman of Bowdoinham — who said PUC had failed to adequately address safety concerns when it issued its approval.

A new study was ordered in August.

Meanwhile, CMP had finished installing some 615,000 of the controversial meters statewide.

The moratorium drew a sharp legal warning from CMP, which wrote in June 2011 it was prepared to sue the city unless the measure was dropped.

“The Bath ordinance simply is not needed to give customers in Bath the choice of whether or not to receive a smart meter,” a lawyer from Portland law firm Pierce Atwood wrote.

CMP later softened its position, with mailings to Bath customers asking that they choose among three options: go with the “smart meter” and incur no additional cost; get a smart meter that emits no radio signal for a one-time charge of $20 and a monthly charge of $10.50; or get an electromechanical meter, with a one-time charge of $40 and a $12 monthly fee.

CMP promotes the meters because they allow the company to monitor power use without using personnel. The utility also says the equipment allows customers to monitor their power usage more effectively, so as to enhance conservation.

The utility used federal stimulus cash to pay for half the $191 million installation.

That drew complaints from a CMP union and some lawmakers, who said Recovery Act money was funding a project that eliminated an estimated 141 meter-reading positions.

CMP countered that the project actually generated 200 construction jobs — albeit temporary ones.

The current PUC study is ongoing.