Two Prince George families are claiming their B.C. Hydro smart meters have overbilled them.
Manson Crescent residents Martin and Glenda Graham, and Lyon Street residents Pat and Carol Langley, claim they saw sudden, unexplained increases in their power usage some time after smart meters were installed at their homes.
Glenda Graham said she was shocked when she received a bill from B.C. Hydro in March showing her power consumption from November to December, 2011 had increased nearly 60 per cent from the previous year. Graham said a smart meter was installed at their home last year.
"I've never had a bill this high," Graham said. "I can't make those people [B.C. Hydro] understand there is nothing in my house that would suck that much hydro. My Christmas lights were barely up. It actually should be less."
The Graham's have a 1,100 square foot home with natural gas heat and hot water.
In 2010 Graham's husband had used an electric heater to keep a piece of industrial equipment warm during the winter, she said. In 2011 the heater was moved to her husband's shop.
"The only thing that could explain that much Hydro being used is if I had a [marijuana] grow opp. If I did, I could afford to pay the bill," Graham said.
According to B.C. Hydro bills provided by Graham, for the period Nov. 19 to Dec. 17, 2010 she was billed for 3,422 kilowatt hours of power. For the same period in 2011, Graham's bill showed 5,405 kilowatt hours.
According to her bills, Graham's power consumption increased nearly 25 per cent between Dec. 18, 2010 to Jan. 19, 2011 compared to the previous year. For the October to November period, Graham's bill showed her power consumption was more than double the previous year -from 687 kilowatt hours in 2010 to 1490 kilowatt hours in 2011.
Graham said on March 3 she was issued three monthly bills totaling $964.58 for three months power. When she called to find out why B.C. Hydro waited until March to send her all three bills, she said she was told by call centre agent that her power consumption had doubled and B.C. Hydro wanted to confirm the accuracy of the measurements before billing her.
"I have a son going to college in September," she said. "Basically between my monthly payments and the repayments ... I'm paying $200 every two weeks to Hydro."
Graham said she questions the validity of the bills, but has no choice but to pay them or risk being sent to a collections agency.
For Pat and Carol Langley, they noticed their B.C. Hydro smart meter had been displaying an error message in January. The meter was repaired after several weeks, Carol Langley said, but when they got their bills for January, it was substantially higher than the year before.
In January, 2011 the Langley's used an average of 23 kilowatt hours per day. In 2012, their consumption was reported at 61 kilowatt hours per day.
Their bills for December, February and March were all in line with the previous year's consumption, she said.
"It shouldn't have gone up, logically," Langley said. "It doesn't make sense, in our case, that it should go up."
Langley said the power bill from January 2012 was inline with her bills from January 2009 and 2010.
"From 2009 to 2010 we had my mother on oxygen 24-7. That used quite a bit of power," she said.
Langley said she wonders if B.C. Hydro estimated her bill based on previous years.
Provincial issue
Last week B.C. NDP energy critic John Horgan called on the province to request the B.C. Utilities Commission to investigate allegations of overbilling by smart meters.
"Dozens of people have written to me with concerns about their bills, sometimes doubling or even tripling after their smart meter was installed. People are concerned that these recent massive bills will be the new norm, and they're worried about how they're going to be able to pay for it," Horgan said in an written statement. "But the Liberals refuse to admit there's a problem."
Horgan said the $1 billion smart meter program was exempted from B.C. Utilities Commission oversight through the Clean Energy Act.
"Exempting the entire program from independent oversight was a huge mistake from the start; compounding that problem doesn't serve the public interest," Horgan said.
B.C. Hydro response
B.C. Hydro spokesperson Bob Gammer said the company investigates every complaint about high bills.
B.C. Hydro is required to follow standards of metering set out by Measurements Canada, a federal regulatory and monitoring agency, Gammer said.
"We investigate every single high-bill issue," Gammer said. "We will also look at the meter, just in case. Meters do fail, so we do replace several thousand meters per year."
However, Gammer said, to date B.C. Hydro has not found any evidence of smart meters failing and causing higher-than-expected bills. When conventional, mechanical meters fail they tend to run slower and under bill a customer, he added.
This winter only 40 per cent of complaints about unexpected high bills came from clients with smart meters, he said.
Gammer said he could not speak directly to Graham or Langley's specific cases, because of privacy restrictions. However, he did say it would be unusual for bills not to be sent for three months -as happened to Graham.
In cases like the Langley's broken meter, the meter would be replaced as soon as the problem is detected, he said. The customer would be sent an estimated bill, based on previous year's bills and/or a formula used by B.C. Hydro, Gammer said.
In many cases, there are reasons for a higher-than-expected bill which the customer may not have thought of, he said.
Increases to electricity rates can result in higher bills, even if the actual power consumption hasn't
changed.
In addition, it is important for customers to compare their bill to bills from the same time the previous year, he said.
Customers who do have a concern about their bill can call B.C. Hydro at 1-800-BCHYDRO (224-9376). In addition, information on common causes of higher-than-expected bills can be found on the company's website, www.bchydro.com under the News and Conservation tabs.
Customers can also register online to view their billing information for the past 16 months online, he said.
