Has anyone dealt with CT/PT meter multiplier errors that went undetected for over a year? I have a Westar Energy account in Wichita where they were applying a 40x multiplier instead of 400x on a large commercial meter for 18 months. Customer was severely underbilled - now facing a $47,000 adjustment. Westar claims it was a 'meter shop error' when the meter was installed but customer says they never received any notice of meter changes. The timing couldn't be worse as this business is already struggling financially. Any thoughts on challenging multiplier errors this old?
Westar Energy meter reading error - charged for 18 months at wrong multiplier
Rachel, that's a tough one. PG&E here in California has strict policies about meter shop documentation - any multiplier change should have been logged with photos and test results. Did Westar provide any documentation from when the meter was supposedly installed? With a 10x difference in multiplier, the customer's bills would have been suspiciously low compared to their historical usage. That might actually hurt your case if the usage pattern was obviously wrong and customer should have noticed.
Gil raises a good point about the usage patterns. I had a similar case with Georgia Power where a restaurant was getting billed for residential-level usage due to a CT error. The customer claimed they didn't notice because 'the bills were just lower' but that argument didn't fly with the PSC. However, 18 months is a long time for the utility to catch their own error. In Georgia, we've had success arguing that utilities have an obligation to monitor for obvious billing anomalies, especially on commercial accounts with established usage patterns.
Ray makes an excellent point about the utility's obligation to monitor. Here in Louisiana with Entergy, they have automated systems that flag unusual usage variations. An 18-month period where a large commercial customer suddenly drops to 10% of normal usage should have triggered alerts. Rachel, you might want to argue that Westar was negligent in not catching such an obvious error sooner. The longer they wait to discover their own mistake, the weaker their position becomes for full cost recovery. I'd push for limiting the adjustment to maybe 6-12 months maximum.