6 Cases Of Electricity Billing And Metering Errors

Electricity Errors Help No One

Or should we be saying, 6 GOOD REASONS electricity billing and metering, needs to be improved and better regulated and further standardised in Australia.

Being a small ELECTRICITY AUDIT BUSINESS involved with the everyday sorting of electricity billing, metering and usage issues for householders and small business in Australia, you would think the metering and billing errors we see are far and few. We would say errors of this type, some detailed here in this blog post, account for more that 20% of our ELECTRICITY AUDIT SERVICE requests.


Business Client : Six electricity meters present with the client being billed for six meters. An electricity meter was sited that only appeared on one electricity bill during the year, whilst still being active in realtime. Another electricity meter was on all of the electricity bills with considerable cost shown, but was not found to be on site. In fact this phantom electricity meter was reported as not being listed or registered / active in NSW by the electricity distributor.

Residential Client : An elderly couple whom moved into a home eighteen months ago, had a new electricity meter installed at that time, as the original was faulty. They had only ever been charged for off-peak electricity during this eighteen month period after the new meter installation.

Residential Client : Hot water was being billed on the peak tariff, even though the ripple controller and off-peak meter was present and being seen as active by the electricity distributor and noted by the householder. The electricity retailer denying the off-peak meter was installed and the client was mistaken. Photographs were not evidence enough with this retailer to make the case!

Residential Client : Electricity billing errors on a TOU tariff, where two rates for each tariff are stated on the bill due to a price change. The problem being the first price rate for each tariff was not correctly computed resulting in a over charge, on each tariff. The multiplication of kWh used and cost did not compute. It is thought this is not to be client specific and could be a systemic billing error, by this electricity retailer. This electricity issue is still under investigation.

Residential Client : The householder was informed by the electricity retailer a TOU tariff was in force. In fact the client was being billed on a tiered rate with a hybrid electricity bill showing some details of a TOU graph and table. No TOU meter was installed and the electricity retailer was informed of this. This error by the electricity retailer was stopping the householder from sorting other electricity hardware issues.

Residential Client : Hot water found to be using 100% peak electricity. The householder was informed by the electricity retailer off-peak was not available, in any case! Off-peak electricity was in fact available and a new off peak meter was installed.


With most of the cases we come across the electricity issue is eventually solved, but why is it so difficult to solve and why is the client often treated as an idiot by the electricity retailer?

Being treated like an idiot only results in more householders changing electricity retailer, with this action opening up the chance for error yet again.

Is it not time we had more regulation to stop these simple basic issues appearing time and time again?

Visit our ELECTRICITY BILLING ERRORS for more examples.

This blog post and podcast brought to you by Aussie Home Energy, a major player in the HOME ELECTRICITY REDUCTION SERVICE industry in Australia.