The D.C. utility consumer advocate charged that heating bills for some city residents soared hundreds or even thousands of dollars last winter partly because of flawed meters, a claim swiftly challenged by Pepco.
The Office of the People’s Counsel, which represents utility ratepayers, received about 400 complaints during the 2008-2009 winter, a 1,557 percent increase over the previous season. Some residents’ bills had doubled or tripled, seemingly without reason.
“Notably, many consumers were perplexed because, as they advised the Office, they had not added new electronic equipment or changed their consumption pattern,” People’s Counsel Elizabeth Noel reported recently to the D.C. Public Service Commission.
Noel has targeted another reason for rising rates — faulty Pepco equipment.
Roughly 70 percent of the high bills studied by Noel’s staff were the result of recorded increased consumption. But the analysis also found that “random faulty meters may account for the high bill readings for more than 43 percent of consumers.” And it raised the possibility of “random meter reading errors.”
But Pepco strongly denied that charge. In documents filed this week with the commission, the city’s leading power supplier argued, as it has since January, that wildly high winter bills were caused by a colder-than-average winter, longer billing cycles as a result of numerous holidays, an increase in customer usage, and higher electricity generation rates — the deregulated market price Pepco pays for the power it provides.
But the controversy won’t go away. The commission’s investigation into high energy bills continues.
“We don’t seem to be able to end it,” said Pepco spokesman Robert Dobkin. “I mean, bills were high, there’s no question about it.”
The possibility of faulty meters is an issue worth further review, Noel said Thursday.
“The commission needs to take it on and restore the public confidence that the meters are performing accurately,” she said.
In its most recent commission filing, Pepco declared OPC’s report to be “confusing, irreconcilably flawed and of little value.” Pepco spokesman Clay Anderson said a utility analysis of more than 5,000 meters found 95 percent accuracy.
Noel’s 43 percent figure, he said, “doesn’t wash.”
Ted Newman’s Pepco bill for his Southwest D.C. town house hit $800-plus in one winter month — when he was in the U.S. Virgin Islands, he said Thursday.
“My thermostat was set at 65,” said Newman, who sent his billing data to the OPC for review. “Nobody was in my town house. My town house was vacant.”
Pepco explains high bills
» January 2009 was the coldest January in five years.
» December through January included five holidays that increased the billing period to 38 days.
» The supply cost of electricity has risen 70 percent since 2005.
