Besides being concerned about being charged an outrageous price for power this month, there is another concern everyone regardless of your rate plan should be aware of. If you have a smart meter, there is a good chance your usage on the bill will be incorrect.

As a lifelong customer advocate, in my early years working in telecommunications, I fought an endless monthly battle with the mindless billing departments in the telcos I worked for in an attempt to protect clients on my account list from billing mistakes. The same mistakes happened every month because the billing software didn’t keep up with actual market conditions, contracted rates, or a thousand other reasons. Since then I have never trusted a bill I’ve personally received from any utility provider.

Many of you that didn’t have power this week may face a similar issue with your electric bills. Why? Because smart meter billing software is designed to see any zero usage period as an anomaly so instead of billing you zero for that time period when your power was out, it’s programmed to bill you for the historical average of that specific time period. Smart meters are capable of doing 96 billing periods per day; one every 15 minutes….

The Public Utility Commission of Texas has warned retail electric providers not to charge customers historical averages for zero billing periods of non-usage this week but I highly suspect there is no way to easily resolve this real time for the providers, so I suspect most will send out incorrect bills. Just a heads up, it will be a good idea for everyone to closely review your bill this month. If you have access to an online portal, review it as soon as possible.

Also, while your memory is fresh, think back and make a note of the times you didn’t have power this week. It will help you as you review and dispute your bill if needed.

Good info.

Are you saying the total usage on the meter will be in incorrect or just the software at the office? Can I just look at the total now the outage is over and check that vs the billing?

How does this effect average billing?
I think we are flat rate here

If you pay the same amount every month that is a different matter, but most pay a fixed rate per kWh of what your provider claims is actual usage. If so, the concern is you may be billed for more kWh than you actually consumed because that is the way the billing software works when it turns a 15 minute zero usage period into a historical usage amount. It’s coded in their favor, not yours.

Say you used 1,500 kWh last February 2020 and your bill was $150 (assuming a rate of 10 cents per kWh). If your power was out 25 percent of the time for the billing cycle in 2021, your actual usage may only be 1,125 vs 1,500 kWh but because of the way the software turns every 15 minute zero bill cycle into a historical average, your bill is likely to be $150 instead of $112.

How ever this billing works, I hope all providers, and ercot lose billions on this fiasco.

My highest ever bill was after a hurricane and I was unprepared to argue it so I had to pay. I figure they got a lot of people for a lot of money after that hurricane. Mine was double what I normally pay

How about a $17,000 electric bill for your house......

https://www.fox4news.com/news/gridd...-provider-stuck-with-17000-electric-bill

I have read if your rate is fixed your ok.
If your rate is variable bend over and kiss your bank account goodbye

Our bill had a $45 comfort credit. would have been normal otherwise.

I have not seen one of the Cirro average billing commercials for a while and that is good. One of the most deceptive commercials out there along with Liberty Mutual.

Per my fixed rate per kWh contract if estimated readings are used the bill will be reconciled when the actual usage is known.

I will find out soon since my billing cycle ends tomorrow (Feb 22). From Monday, February 15, 2021 at 02:00 am until Friday, February 19, 2021 at 6:00 pm my Smart Meter readings were only estimates and not actual reading because I had no power at my house.

For this billing cycle my meter reading started at 27,156 and my real time current meter reading is 28,356 showing I have used 1,200 kWh and should be billed close to to that amount.

This information is on the Smart Meter Texas page:

Thanks for the heads-up. I logged into my Reliant account, and it's showing minimal usage on the days that we lost power. 1.7kWh on a day that we had a whopping 30-40 minutes of electricity.

I can remember when your electric bill used to be simple. This isn't simple.