We've had three major storm events here in Tulsa in the past month and PSO has been all over the map with their restoration billing. I'm seeing phantom demand charges showing up during outage periods on several commercial accounts. Anyone else noticing utilities getting sloppy with billing accuracy during storm recovery? I've got one client that shows 847 kW demand during a 6-hour outage window. Makes me wonder if their automated systems are just broken or if they're hoping nobody notices.
Anyone else dealing with crazy weather and outage frequencies?
Oh man, you're not alone Ed. PSE up here in Seattle has been a disaster lately with storm billing. We had that windstorm in February and I'm finding interval data that shows usage during confirmed outage periods. Filed complaints on four accounts so far and gotten $23,000 in credits back. The worst part is their customer service reps act like this is the first time they've heard of the problem. These utilities really need to get their act together with basic data validation.
Same thing happening with PG&E out here in Bakersfield. Storm outages in January and February, then mystery charges appear two billing cycles later. I think their automated systems just fill in estimated data without any quality control. Found one account billed for 1,200 kWh during a 14-hour outage. When I called it in, the rep said "oh that happens sometimes" like it's no big deal. Got a $4,800 credit but had to escalate to a supervisor twice.
Georgia Power has been pulling the same nonsense here in Atlanta. Three ice storms this winter and phantom billing on at least 40% of the accounts I audit. The pattern seems to be they estimate usage during outages but don't flag it properly in their billing system. I've started requesting detailed outage logs for every storm event and cross-referencing with interval data. Pain in the rear but I've recovered over $180,000 for clients this year just from storm-related billing errors.
Ohio Edison and FirstEnergy have the same issue. I think it's an industry-wide problem with how these utilities handle estimated readings during outage periods. Their computer systems seem to default to historical usage patterns instead of zero consumption. I've had good luck filing formal complaints with the PUCO - they take this stuff seriously and the utilities usually settle quickly rather than deal with regulatory scrutiny.
TVA territory here in Knoxville and we see the same patterns. The key is documenting everything - outage start/end times, customer notifications, meter readings before and after. I keep a storm log for every major weather event now. Last month alone I caught $45,000 in bogus charges across six commercial accounts. These utilities are either incompetent or hoping we won't notice. Either way, it's money in our pockets when we catch them.
The frustrating part is how long it takes to get these corrected. Eugene Water & Electric Board actually has pretty good customer service but even they take 60-90 days to process storm-related billing corrections. Pacific Power is worse - I've got corrections pending from December storms that still aren't resolved. At least we're all seeing the same patterns, means it's systematic and not just random billing errors. Keep fighting the good fight everyone.