The perils of technology-- got a $200 electric bill this month

[Nords]

I'm going on a trip this week and I've been trying to make sure that I pay the bills before I go, so last week I noticed that our electric bill was late. Since it didn't come in the mail (hey, they're the ones insisting on paper delivery, not me) I went searching for it on HECO's website. $200.33. That's truly unique in the dictionary sense of the word-- the first (and hopefully only) time in 18 years here that ours has been higher than $100.

But first a little background. When we connected our solar (photovoltaic) array to the grid two years ago, the old analog utility meter used to spin "backwards" as we dumped more power into HECO's grid than we were using. The mechanical dials made it difficult to automate the task of the meter reader, but it was pretty simple to read it and to process the bill. The "priceless" part of the analog meter was being able to show your neighbors "Look, it's spinning backwards!" followed by demonstrating the Dilbert Engineer's Dance of Joy.

However last August HECO (presumably notified by our neighbors of my unauthorized customer amusement at public-utility expense) replaced the "old" analog meter with a digital model. They wouldn't let me keep the old one because they shipped it back to Tijuana the manufacturer for recycling. Or else they suspected why I wanted to keep it.

The digital meter is extremely uncool for several Luddite reasons, the first being that the LCD display doesn't spin backwards. (v2.0 will doubtless have an animated LCD icon that rotates at an arbitrarily proportionate rate in the appropriate direction.) You're probably thinking to yourself "Ah, but the digital meter can report its readings to HECO over the Internet or the utility lines, thereby eliminating the expense of a meter reader." You would be technically correct but you would not be a HECO customer.

This meter reports its data over the meter-readernet. Every 15 minutes, 24/7, the meter enters three numbers into its vast memory: the total number of KWHrs delivered by HECO to that minute since the meter started recording its data, the total number of KWHRs delivered by us to HECO, and (stay with me here for the technical part) their difference. You engineers are correctly suspecting that anyone who uses memory to store the difference of two numbers already stored elsewhere in memory is not an honors graduate of the smart design school.

So now the meter reader has to use an electronic download tool to obtain the 15-minute-increment data (because just transcribing the monthly numbers off the display would not justify the expense of employing a meter reader). The meter reader delivers the data to the billing processors who upload it into their automated (finally!) billing system.

However the clerk still has to tell the system which numbers to use to calculate the bill... because HECO's 1990-era billing system is not set up for electronic meter readers. So last week a clerk had to choose whether we paid for (1) all the KWHrs HECO's delivered to us since last August, (2) all the KWHrs we've delivered to HECO, or (3) the difference. You know where this is going. Of course these numbers are helpfully printed on the bill so I could quickly figure out what happened.

Luckily the billing supervisor caught the mistake and stopped the bill ("Ha, Nords won't see this one!!"). Unfortunately the billing supervisor didn't know that "stopping the bill" only stopped the mailed version and not the electronic one posted on HECO's website (without apology or explanation). As a slimy customer I was forced to talk to both the billing dept ("Hey, how did you know about this?!?") and the net-metering dept and, because they can't be bothered to work it out between themselves, to report their conversations to each other. Confusion & hilarity ensued, especially when the billing supervisor accused the net-metering supervisor of being responsible for the mistake-- which I promptly related to my new good buddy the net-metering supervisor.

"Whaddya do all day?!?" indeed.

The "revised" bill (in true Orwellian fashion, HECO says the first version never happened) charges for 83 KWHrs-- $19.21. Those are good numbers!

The net-metering supervisor says HECO is attempting to simultaneously upgrade their meter-reading system and their billing system. (He's hoping to retire before that happens.) The good news is that HECO's net-metering contracts have doubled in two years from just 26 to over 60, and most of the new ones are for 8-10 KW arrays.

Our 3 KW array suddenly seems somehow inadequate... I think I'm suffering from photovoltaic envy.

[greg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords ... I think I'm suffering from photovoltaic envy.

May I suggest a silicone injection?

[farmerEd]

I once got a phone bill (when I was working and had 4 business lines into the house), for somewhere north of $6000 for one month (all 4 lines). Normal bill was around $300.

It showed local usage of approx 180,000 minutes, billed at something like 2.5/minute (but because it was local didn't show who I supposedly called).

At first I feared that somehow I had managed to leave all 4 lines connected to the internet (back in the dial-up days), 24/7 for the whole month....

Luckily as it turned out it was mathematically impossible for me to have that many minutes in one month (4 lines * 31 days * 24 hours * 60 minutes = 178,560)...it took 2 years to get the balance off my bill (I basically told verizon I wasn't paying it under any circumstances, but continued to pay the new charges every month), and eventually they just dropped it off...never got an explanation.

Sure was glad I wasn't paying with Automatic Electronic Funds Transfer every month!

[sgeeeee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldMcDonald I once got a phone bill (when I was working and had 4 business lines into the house), for somewhere north of $6000 for one month (all 4 lines). Normal bill was around $300. It showed local usage of approx 180,000 minutes, billed at something like 2.5/minute (but because it was local didn't show who I supposedly called). At first I feared that somehow I had managed to leave all 4 lines connected to the internet (back in the dial-up days), 24/7 for the whole month.... Luckily as it turned out it was mathematically impossible for me to have that many minutes in one month (4 lines * 31 days * 24 hours * 60 minutes = 178,560)...it took 2 years to get the balance off my bill (I basically told verizon I wasn't paying it under any circumstances, but continued to pay the new charges every month), and eventually they just dropped it off...never got an explanation. Sure was glad I wasn't paying with Automatic Electronic Funds Transfer every month!

Once when I was checking out of a hotel in San Francisco, I had a similar experience. When the woman behind the desk printed my bill for the week, it was over 500 pages -- all in-room movie charges. Since I had been in meetings all week, I hadn't even had a chance to turn the TV on. I was worried that I might have trouble convincing the hotel management of that fact until we determined that I would have had to watch several dozen movies at a time, 24 hours a day, while I was in the hotel to rack up the bill that printed out. I never did find out what happened.

[SecondCor521]

Nords, glad you got your bill straightened out.

I used to work for a bank, and several times we made mistakes that we desperately tried to hide from the customers. It's never good policy to have your customer's figure out that you've temporarily misplaced a few million dollars. Examples:

1. One time a data entry clerk, attempting to enter a $3.75 customer payment, entered the payment as $3,750,000,000.00. Because of some sort of accounting/auditing thing, said-same data entry clerk couldn't edit/correct/fix the entry, so we had to get IT to write a special program or something to delete the transaction. For a week or two somewhere there was a customer who had a credit balance that was maybe 100x the entire bank's assets.

2. One time they ran the program that paid the bank mortgages from the bank checking accounts twice. Probably temporarily overdrew a few thousand accounts. Luckily they fixed that one before the sun came up.

2Cor521

[TromboneAl]

I've often thought that I need a word for this. That is, a word for "time wasted for being too much on top of things."

If I understand your post, Nords, if you hadn't gone online and checked, or worried that your bill was late, the corrected bill would have eventually arrived, and you wouldn't have had to make any calls.

This has often happened to me, for example, checking the status of shipped packages.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TromboneAl I've often thought that I need a word for this. That is, a word for "time wasted for being too much on top of things."

I thought we already had a word: analysis. We just don't pronounce the first four letters correctly.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

See how easy working is? You wouldnt have had time to look into it, you'd have gnashed your teeth, broken every lightbulb with a broomstick, paid the bill and moved on with your life.

[VoyT]

Uh CFB, last time I looked at this thread, I could have sworn your post was listed under "TH." You do a switch, or did this new software just turn into a wayback machine?

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Yeah, when the conversion went through, everyone went back to their original login name. I begged for CFB back, and was quickly and magically granted it by the mysterious Janet.

[thefed]

nords...


im sure youve answered this before, but what did your 3kw arraycost to get up and running...and what are the savings like?

[clifp]

I once got a $400 bill for internet service instead of $25 because ISP (I don't even remember which one) computers didn't know that Hawaii was part of the United States and was billing me at the internation rate $.40/minute The first customer service rep even tried to argue the point with me. Fortunately the supervisor quickly agreed...

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by clifp I once got a $400 bill for internet service instead of $25 because ISP (I don't even remember which one) computers didn't know that Hawaii was part of the United States and was billing me at the internation rate $.40/minute The first customer service rep even tried to argue the point with me. Fortunately the supervisor quickly agreed...

My favorite is the "customer service" rep who wants a weather update then and has to recite their stories of their "Hawaya trip"... and then five minutes later they're telling me "Oh, sorry, we only ship to the United States."

[bssc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords My favorite is the "customer service" rep who wants a weather update then and has to recite their stories of their "Hawaya trip"... and then five minutes later they're telling me "Oh, sorry, we only ship to the United States."

Be glad that you don't live in New Mexico. They had to add USA onto their license plates since people were getting confused.

[theoldwizard]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords I'm going on a trip this week and ... When we connected our solar (photovoltaic) array to the grid two years ago ...

WOW ! I'm impressed. What part of the country do you live in ? I'd love to hear more about this system.

[theoldwizard]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords ... the old analog utility meter used to spin "backwards" as we dumped more power into HECO's grid than we were using....

You should be happy that they only replaced the meter. I heard the same story during the 70's (after the first energy crisis). That guy's utility company sued him for fraud and almost won !

There are laws now in most (all?) states, that say the utility company must buy surplus power, but not at the same rate they sell it to you. Back then there were no such laws. ("We never had a contract to buy power from you !")

The old solution was 2 meters. One read in the forward direction and the other read in the backward direction. (I don't know what prevented those mechanical meters from spinning backward; probably some kind of ratchet/one way clutch)

[Scrapr]

Am I misremembering?

Wasn't there a way to make your meter run backwards by using a magnet? Supposedly used by pot growers trying to hide large energy usage. (So I've heard)

[cute fuzzy bunny]

yeah, but it had to be an electromagnet, and the electromagnet consumed twice as much energy as the growth lamps did.

[rec]

The "priceless" part of the analog meter was being able to show your neighbors "Look, it's spinning backwards!"

My father once owned a home with cheap taxes on it. He told a the lady next door the taxes were cheap, that was the end of cheap taxes for my father.

[megacorp-firee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rec The "priceless" part of the analog meter was being able to show your neighbors "Look, it's spinning backwards!" My father once owned a home with cheap taxes on it. He told a the lady next door the taxes were cheap, that was the end of cheap taxes for my father.

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