HARRISBURG, Pa. — The comment period has opened on a proposed settlement to address a series of billing issues that PPL Electric Utilities had from December 2022 to April 2023,
the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission said in a reminder Monday.
In the settlement, PPL has agreed to not up its customers’ prices to recoup the costs of its blunder, which it puts at $16 million. It also will pay a $1 million civil penalty to the PUC.
"The inability to transfer actual meter data backed up normal customer billing operations and resulted in sending estimated December 2022 bills. Later, human error caused additional problems, with some customers receiving incorrect bills while others received no bills, and issues with bill estimation resulting in wildly inaccurate bills.”Pennsylvania Utilities Commission release
“Based on data obtained from PPL during [the PUC’s independent bureau of investigation and enforcement] investigation, the billing issues originated in December 2022, when PPL discovered that customer meter data was not transferring from the utility’s meter data management software to its customer service system," PUC said in a release.
"The inability to transfer actual meter data backed up normal customer billing operations and resulted in sending estimated December 2022 bills.
“Later, human error caused additional problems, with some customers receiving incorrect bills while others received no bills, and issues with bill estimation resulting in wildly inaccurate bills.”
Some customers also were rebilled, without notice, for the correct amounts, resulting in drastic effects on some checking accounts.
Breakdown of absorbed cost
The breakdown of the $16 million in absorbed costs is estimated to be:
- Voluntarily waived $2.3 million in late payment fees
- Forgoing recovery of $7.8 million of additional bad debt expense arising out of the voluntary service termination moratorium
- Forgoing collection of $1.7 million from customers who were underbilled in the estimation true-up process
- Forgoing recovery of an additional $3.7 million of unplanned costs in engaging external vendors
- Forgoing recovery of $700,000 of unbudgeted employee overtime expenses
Pennsylvanians are encouraged to file comments on the proposed settlement electronically by opening and using a PUC eFiling account through the Commission’s website or by mail to Secretary, PA Public Utility Commission, Commonwealth Keystone Building, 400 North St., Harrisburg, PA 17120. The deadline for submissions is Feb. 28.
All comments should reference the PUC docket number for this case: M-2023-3038060. Email and fax submissions will not be accepted.
