(Mods, if this is the wrong subject area, feel free to move it to a better one!)
We have solar on our primary residence and on a rental home where our son lives. PG&E is the electricity provider for both. On July 18 there was a fierce storm that knocked the power out not only to both homes but also to tens of thousands of customers here in Fresno. The power was out from around 7:15 in the evening for a little over three hours. The electric meter flatlined of course.
I periodically check on the "My Usage" tab on PG&E's website just to see how much electricity we deliver versus how much we receive. A few days after the outage I was curious to see the "flatline" on the bar graph for July 18. Much to my amazement, the graph indicated that we received approximately 600W per hour during the outage. However, it came with a disclaimer that indicated that during these periods, readings were unavailable for various reasons, so PG&E "estimated" our receipt based upon some algorithm using some sort of data known only to them. The disclaimer further stated that PG&E would figure out what our true delivery/receipt was and would make the appropriate corrections.
Well, sixty days later, there was still no correction as to our phantom receipt of electricity during the outage. I telephoned the solar help line, and the customer representative assured me that things would be corrected. However, she did not know when. I politely asked her how she could know this, as sixty days is quite a long time to cure an error that superficially quite easy to fix, since the outage was known and the affected customers are known. I also said that PG&E currently does not enjoy a favorable reputation for being a good corporate citizen.
After a short time on hold, she reviewed our billing. She came back on the line and said that no correction was in the works, and that she would kick it up to a supervisor to make the necessary corrections. She said further that the supervisor would be calling me after the corrections were made to both accounts informing me of the end result.
Granted, squawking about four bits or so of phantom electricity charges is probably not worth anyone's time. But there is no excuse for any company to blow off its customers knowingly and charge them for merchandise not received, regardless of amount. The variable in all this is that we do not know just how many customers were affected throughout the outage area (or, for that matter in all PG&E outages throughout their territory in any given time period.) We just do not know if PG&E has the necessary internal controls and internal audit staff to review their systems to determine if billing and operations are doing the right thing for both the company and the customer.
We have solar on our primary residence and on a rental home where our son lives. PG&E is the electricity provider for both. On July 18 there was a fierce storm that knocked the power out not only to both homes but also to tens of thousands of customers here in Fresno. The power was out from around 7:15 in the evening for a little over three hours. The electric meter flatlined of course.
I periodically check on the "My Usage" tab on PG&E's website just to see how much electricity we deliver versus how much we receive. A few days after the outage I was curious to see the "flatline" on the bar graph for July 18. Much to my amazement, the graph indicated that we received approximately 600W per hour during the outage. However, it came with a disclaimer that indicated that during these periods, readings were unavailable for various reasons, so PG&E "estimated" our receipt based upon some algorithm using some sort of data known only to them. The disclaimer further stated that PG&E would figure out what our true delivery/receipt was and would make the appropriate corrections.
Well, sixty days later, there was still no correction as to our phantom receipt of electricity during the outage. I telephoned the solar help line, and the customer representative assured me that things would be corrected. However, she did not know when. I politely asked her how she could know this, as sixty days is quite a long time to cure an error that superficially quite easy to fix, since the outage was known and the affected customers are known. I also said that PG&E currently does not enjoy a favorable reputation for being a good corporate citizen.
After a short time on hold, she reviewed our billing. She came back on the line and said that no correction was in the works, and that she would kick it up to a supervisor to make the necessary corrections. She said further that the supervisor would be calling me after the corrections were made to both accounts informing me of the end result.
Granted, squawking about four bits or so of phantom electricity charges is probably not worth anyone's time. But there is no excuse for any company to blow off its customers knowingly and charge them for merchandise not received, regardless of amount. The variable in all this is that we do not know just how many customers were affected throughout the outage area (or, for that matter in all PG&E outages throughout their territory in any given time period.) We just do not know if PG&E has the necessary internal controls and internal audit staff to review their systems to determine if billing and operations are doing the right thing for both the company and the customer.
