Greg S from Omaha, NE. OPPD territory. Client is a large cold storage warehouse. OPPD has a voluntary green energy rider — customers can opt in to pay a premium for renewable energy credits. My client opted in three years ago, decided the premium was not worth it after 6 months, and sent a written opt-out letter to OPPD. But the rider charge of $0.005/kWh is still on the bills 30 months later. At 400,000 kWh/month that is $2,000/month or $60,000 since the opt-out letter was sent.
Client opted out of green energy rider but still paying it
Greg, a documented opt-out that was ignored for 30 months is a clear-cut case. Your client has the letter — I assume they have proof of delivery? A certified mail receipt or email confirmation would make this airtight. OPPD should refund the full $60,000 with minimal pushback.
Randy, the opt-out was sent by regular mail with no delivery confirmation. That is the one weak spot. The client has a copy of the letter and the date stamp from their office postage meter, but no proof OPPD received it. OPPD says they have no record of the opt-out.
Greg, I work with OPPD too. Their opt-out process requires written notice received at least 30 days before the next billing cycle. If they claim they never received the letter, you have a he-said-she-said situation. But check whether your client called OPPD at any point after sending the letter. If there is a call record on the OPPD side referencing the opt-out, that would corroborate. Also check whether the client mentioned it in any emails to OPPD about other account matters.
Ken, the client bookkeeper says she called OPPD about 2 weeks after sending the letter to confirm receipt. She does not have the exact date but she thinks it was mid-February 2014. If OPPD records calls — and most utilities do — that call record could show the opt-out was discussed.
Requested OPPD call records for the account. They pulled the log and found a call on February 19, 2014 with a note: customer inquired about green energy opt-out status. The CSR note says confirmed letter received, processing. So OPPD did receive the letter AND confirmed it to the customer — they just never processed the cancellation. That is 100% a utility processing failure. Filed for the full $60,000 refund.
Credit received in full: $60,000. The OPPD billing supervisor was embarrassed. She found that the opt-out was entered into the customer record but the billing system flag was never changed because the CSR who took the call did not have permission to modify rider codes and the request was supposed to be forwarded to a supervisor who apparently never acted on it. My client also got a written confirmation of the opt-out with an OPPD reference number this time.