I'm looking at a Duke Energy bill for a Cincinnati customer and it shows "ESTIMATED" readings for their smart meter. How is this possible? Isn't the whole point of AMI technology to provide actual readings 24/7? The bill shows estimated usage of 2,847 kWh when their typical monthly usage is around 1,200 kWh. Customer got an $847 bill instead of their normal $350. Duke says the smart meter had "communication issues" for 3 weeks. This seems like a major failure of the smart meter system.
Smart meter "estimated" readings - how is this even possible?
Ruth, unfortunately this is more common than utilities admit. I've seen similar issues with Entergy Arkansas where AMI meters lose cellular connectivity and the utility reverts to estimated billing. The irony is that estimated AMI bills are often less accurate than the old estimated mechanical meter readings because the utilities rely too heavily on automated systems. At least with mechanical meters, the estimator would consider weather patterns and historical usage. Now it's just algorithmic guesswork.
This is exactly why I always tell my Alaska clients to monitor their AMI meter readings through the utility's online portal. Chugach Electric's smart meters occasionally go offline during extreme weather, and customers don't realize they're being estimated until they get a massive true-up bill. The worst case I've seen was 4 months of estimates followed by a $3,200 catch-up bill. Always check that your smart meter is actually transmitting data monthly.
Lisa, that's a great point about monitoring the online portal. I checked Duke's system and it shows "last reading: 23 days ago" for this customer's meter. The estimated bill was based on the same month last year, but this customer installed a heat pump in September, so their usage pattern completely changed. Duke's estimation algorithm had no way to account for the new heating load. I'm filing a dispute and requesting actual meter readings going forward.
Ruth, make sure to request that Duke manually read the meter on-site to establish actual usage for the estimated period. Dominion Energy in South Carolina has a policy where they'll send a technician to manually download stored data from AMI meters that lost communication. Most smart meters store 35+ days of interval data locally, so the actual usage information should still be available even if transmission failed.
George makes an excellent point about locally stored data. Most AMI meters have internal memory that retains interval readings even when communication fails. Utilities should be manually collecting this data for billing adjustments rather than relying on estimates. This is a training and process issue - many utility CSRs don't even know their smart meters store data locally. Always insist on manual data retrieval for extended communication outages.
Update: Duke sent a technician who downloaded 28 days of stored interval data from the meter. Actual usage was 1,156 kWh vs the estimated 2,847 kWh. They're issuing a $521 credit and have flagged this meter for cellular modem replacement. Randy's right - most utility staff don't know about local data storage capabilities. I had to escalate to a supervisor who knew about manual data retrieval procedures. This should be standard practice, not an exception.