DTE Energy rolled out smart meters across most of southeast Michigan over the past couple years. My client is a machine shop in Warren, about 150 kW demand. When I compared bills before and after the meter swap in March 2019, the kWh jumped about 15% overnight. Usage patterns had not changed — same equipment, same shifts. Turns out the old mechanical meter had a multiplier of 20 and the new AMI meter was programmed with a multiplier of 24. Nobody at DTE flagged it and the client just assumed rates went up. Six months of overbilling came to about $8,200.
AMI meter rollout changed my client multiplier — nobody told them
This is becoming more common as AMI rollouts continue. The new digital meters sometimes get programmed from a central database rather than from the physical nameplate on the CTs. If there is a data entry error in the database, it propagates to the new meter and nobody does a field verification. I had three of these in the Pittsburgh area with Duquesne Light in 2018.
Oncor in Texas had the same problem during their rollout. I caught four accounts in the DFW area where the multiplier changed during the AMI swap. Two were overbilled, two were underbilled. The underbilled ones I just flagged in the report and moved on — not our problem to solve.
Update — DTE processed the refund in about 6 weeks. They acknowledged the programming error and did not push back at all. My client was happy, I earned a nice fee, and now I have a new checklist item for every audit: check for AMI swap date and compare before/after billing.
This thread is gold. Just starting out and I would never have thought to check for meter swaps specifically. Adding it to my audit checklist now.