How Do You Know if Cps Bill Was an Estimate or Meter Reading
SAN ANTONIO — When Alamo Heights resident Anne Burnson opened her CPS Energy bill this past February, she was stunned by how much the urban center-endemic utility wanted her to pay: $439.
After all, Burnson, who considers herself a pretty frugal energy user, said she had barely used her heater that month.
The private-school teacher plant the reason in the minor type on the back side of the three bills that preceded February's surprise.
In that location, the utility noted it had estimated how much gas and electricity she had used for those months, instead of sending a meter reader to her home.
The estimates for those iii months of bills — November 2012 through January 2013 — violated CPS' own policy, which says the utility tin can merely guess a meter two months in a row. Besides, the utility underestimated how much electricity and gas she had used, which resulted in the sky-high February bill when the utility finally read her meters once again.
"I think they should have a moral responsibleness as a public utility company to brand sure that they're charging people for what they actually use," Burnson said.
She wasn't alone.
A San Antonio Express-News investigation into CPS Energy'due south billing practices institute the utility estimated meters instead of reading them more than than 400,000 times during 2012. Those estimates deemed for most five percentage of the utility's meter reads that twelvemonth.
The newspaper analyzed more than than 24 one thousand thousand meter read records for electricity service from 2010 through 2012 to examine the number of estimates. Estimations were much more frequent in late 2012 than they were in 2011 or 2010, the Express-News assay constitute.
Click on the map to see where CPS Energy estimated meters:
The number soared later the utility dismissed a contractor that provided meter readers in Nov 2012 for poor functioning.
Georgia-based Contract Callers Inc. had provided more than one-quarter of CPS' meter reads. Instead of growing its own meter-reading workforce, the utility dramatically expanded its number of estimations to cover the manpower shortage.
CPS, withal, rehired the company 3 months later to once again provide it with meter readers information technology needed to finish estimations. The contractor returned to the chore in June.
In the months between the contractor'southward dismissal and the return of its meter readers, the large number of estimations acquired some customers' energy bills to wildly fluctuate and played havoc on CPS' billing system, which triggered a storm of customer complaints that overwhelmed the utility's staff and phone system.
CPS CEO Doyle Beneby acknowledged the estimates and subsequent billing fiasco injure the utility's standing with many of its customers.
"Give us a chance," he said, "to regain their faith."
Currently, the utility says information technology's estimating ane to 2 pct of its meter readings.
CPS, the country's largest municipally endemic natural gas and electrical company, provides service to 741,000 electrical and 331,000 natural gas customers in the Greater San Antonio area.
The estimations
CPS Free energy has long used meter estimations, relying on past usage to predict current consumption, to gauge how much energy was used each month.
Utility officials said CPS tries to undershoot how much energy information technology thinks a customer has used when it estimates meters. The utility catches up on the actual amount of energy used the next time it reads the meter. Officials said that organisation helps to ensure that customers are never charged for more than ability than they actually used.
In the past, the practice had been express. CPS estimated less than 1 percent of its meter reads in both 2010 and 2011.
That inverse with the dismissal of Contract Callers in November 2012.
"As the number of estimated reads increased, the number of 'unbillable accounts' also increased," the utility wrote in a blog entry posted in August, apologizing for the billing problems. "That means CPS Free energy's automated billing system was rejecting accounts because of all the estimations, and sending bills to another area to be manually double checked."
That, CPS wrote, was the beginning of a domino effect where unbilled accounts piled upward faster than its staff could clear them, resulting in some customers receiving multiple bills at one time.
"As more customers began calling in, CPS Free energy's telephone lines and customer service staff became overwhelmed," the utility said in the mail.
In December 2012 lone, the utility estimated nearly 23 percent of all of its meters, the newspaper's analysis establish.
The utility acknowledged in its web log mail service that the number of unbilled accounts had grown to more twoscore,000 by March 2013, roughly 5 percent of accounts, with more than ane,000 being added each day.
By July, the percentage of meters being estimated had dropped to 11.i percent, the utility said. Because the data requested past the newspaper in Feb 2013 merely ran through 2012, it was unable to verify the utility'south analysis.
According to meter-read records, the early months of the estimation surge hit many of San Antonio'south older and more densely populated neighborhoods.
For example, in December 2012, CPS estimated: lx percent of the meters in 78212, a fundamental San Antonio Null code that includes Tobin Hill and Olmos Park; nearly 48 percent in 78209, which covers Terrell Hills and Alamo Heights; and more than 29 percent of meters in 78202, which covers the centre of the East Side.
Utility officials said San Antonio's older neighborhoods saw more estimates because that's where buildings with erstwhile-mode meters, which crave manual reads, are most mutual.
Buildings in newer neighborhoods are commonly equipped with newer meters, which require much less manpower to track. I type of meter emits a radio signal that allows it to be read from the street. Some other kind, known equally a smart meter, is networked straight into the utility's system.
The frustration
For some CPS customers, the frustration didn't finish when they managed to brand it through to CPS' overwhelmed staff.
Neal Schleich, an Air Forcefulness veteran, had seen his bills fluctuate dramatically. His Jan 2013 beak ($483.16) was 4 times as loftier as his December 2012 beak ($118.66), and his March bill ($452.32) was twice as much as his February bill ($267.77), he said in a letter he sent to Mayor Julián Castro, a fellow member of the utility's board.
During a five-calendar month span, from Nov 2012 through March, the utility estimated the amount of energy he used 3 times. In December 2012, more than 5 percent of the electric meters in his Nil code were estimated.
So Schleich attempted to contact the utility's customer service department through CPS' website to find out what was going on. He got through, but didn't get the answers he wanted.
"I merely thought that I was beingness left out in the cold entirely and, I mean, when you're contacting customer service — whether it's online customer service or you're talking to somebody on the phone — it doesn't make whatever deviation," the Universal Urban center resident said in an interview. "You should feel like y'all're actually being served past someone who is trying to help you, and I received none of that."
He said his complaints were resolved only afterwards he contacted the office of state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, and ane of her staffers got involved.
He wasn't alone.
Lynne Miller, a retired library specialist who lives in Alamo Heights, said problems with her CPS bills, several of which were estimated, dragged on for nine months.
"They continue sending out revised bills, revised bills, revised bills, because of all the errors that were made," she said. "So, it's not that they weren't straightened out eventually, but at that place was a lot of paperwork involved and a lot of telephone calls."
Miller estimated she called the utility as many as 30 times.
CPS' has a policy governing how oftentimes the utility is allowed to guess bills.
"When there is good reason for doing so, CPS may submit estimated bills using the applicative Rate Schedule and/or Service Agreement, provided that an bodily Meter reading is taken every iii months," co-ordinate to the document "Rules and Regulations Applying to Retail Electrical & Gas Service."
But several people told the Limited-News their bills were estimated for more than two months in a row, apparently in violation the utility's policy:
Burnson'due south meters were estimated for three months straight, according to bills she provided to the newspaper.
The meters at Miller's home were estimated for three months in a row, bills she provided and utility records show.
N Side resident Eileen Shiman's meters were as well estimated for iii consecutive months, from November 2012 through January 2013.
CPS spokeswoman Monika Maeckle didn't direct admit that in some cases the utility had violated its own regulations.
"I think information technology's unquestionable that nosotros fabricated a huge error and that nosotros've endemic up to that," she said, "and we're very lamentable about it and we've been working nonstop to try and get information technology stock-still."
The contractor
Over the past several years, the size of CPS Free energy's meter-reading workforce has shrunk through attrition every bit the utility prepares to dramatically expand its utilize of smart meters, which will make the position largely redundant.
Still, delays in rolling out the smart meters, combined with the ongoing compunction of CPS' meter readers, created a staffing shortage.
"Moving to (smart meters) has taken longer than anticipated, equally so many things often do in a complex industry," Maeckle said. "Intensions were good. The process was slowed downwards by unanticipated issues that accept popped upwards."
In 2008, CPS hired Contract Callers Inc. to provide it with meter readers, according to contracts obtained under the Texas Public Information Act.
While Contract Callers' meter readers accounted for more than a quarter of the utility's total meter reads in the summertime of 2012, records obtained from the utility show, the company's employees were more than than twice as likely to misread meters as CPS' own meter readers in July and August 2012.
"The contractor we had was making a great bargain of errors," Beneby said.
The utility's August amends put it this way: "Information technology became credible during the summertime of 2012 that the contract meter readers were making likewise many errors. The contract was concluded, and CPS Free energy then relied on existing staff and increased the number of estimated meter readings."
The contract with Contract Callers was terminated in Nov 2012.
As part of its solution to the staffing shortage, the utility told customers in its August weblog post that it had signed a new contract for temporary meter readers in Feb.
Even so, the utility did not disclose to readers that its new contract was with Contract Callers, the very firm it had fired simply three months before.
Records show the average error rate for Contract Callers' meter readers from February 2013 through October is comparable to the error rate it had in July and August 2012, before its contract was terminated in November.
However, Contract Callers President Tim Wertz disputed CPS' version of events.
"They told us they had upkeep issues at the end of the yr and that was the reason they gave (for catastrophe the contract)," Wertz said. The utility, he said, didn't offering a specific reason for bringing the company back. "They just said that they'd like for united states to come up back."
Wertz said he was unaware CPS had taken upshot with his house's performance.
CPS declined to respond repeated questions about why it rehired the firm.
However, in a written response to questions, Maeckle said CPS now only pays for accurate meter reads. That'south a change from the utility's past contract with Contract Callers, when the utility paid for every meter read.
Even though the contract meter readers are back on the street and the number of estimates have returned to more normal levels, Anne Burnson'due south faith in CPS Energy to get it right remains shaken.
"I will e'er bank check (my meter) no matter where I live, from at present on," she said. "It never occurred to me that you would take to distrust a public utility company."
nhicks@express-news.cyberspace
Twitter: @ndhapple
Source: https://www.expressnews.com/business/eagle-ford-energy/article/Instead-of-reading-meters-CPS-estimated-how-much-5114104.php
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