Did PSNH raise their rates?

[callmeD]

I just received my PSNH statement that was excessively high and want to know if and by how much rates were raised.

It appears that the bill was for 63 days, meaning I did not receive a statement in December, so they must be charging in advance now. What's going on? :confused:

[AC2717]

they did raise them but I dunno by how much, I know the minimum went from $8 or so a month to almost $10 a month though

[This'nThat]

Here are my last 6 bills. These numbers represent the total cost per KWH. The top number represents my 21 January 2009 bill. As you can see, there has been no recent rate increase over the past few months.

However, there has been an increase of $0.015/KWH year-to-year. The last reading in the list comes from 21 Jan 08

$0.159 - most recent, 21 Jan 09
$0.153
$0.152
$0.155
$0.154
$0.159
$0.161
.
.
.
$0.144 - from 21 Jan 08

[Resident 2B]

My PSNH bill has also seemed higher than it had been, so I started to look into it using the usage information on the PSNH web site. I found that they have not read the meter since October and have been issuing bills based upon estimated use. You can see that by looking at the codes beside the usage for the month. If the code is 02 or 13 it is an estimate. I believe the code of 00 is for an actual read.

When I compared the estimate to the meter, I found that they are over estimating the usage by about 8% in my case. I am sure that this will get corrected soon, when they have a chance to read the meter again.

R2B

[jeffk]

I know PSNH put their meter readers on other duty during the ice storm repairs so bills were being estimated at that time.

There were a lot of people sitting in the dark for 2 weeks and right after power came back on they got their bills. They expected low bills because of no power use but because the bills were estimated they came out higher than the comparative bills for last year. That was adding insult to injury for the people who struggled for 2 weeks without power. I understand what PSNH did but they could have explained it better. Eventually they do a real reading and everything balances out.

[brk-lnt]

I saw something on one my recent bills. The KWH charge was the same, but the recovery fee (I think it was) went up by a fractional amount. Didn't seem to amount to any serious net different though.

[callmeD]

My Nov. bill was 24.12, which I paid. That is an average bill, which I pay monthly.

I received no bill for Dec. and my current bill, dated Jan. 14 indicates delivery services of 37.92 and supplier services of 38.22, along with electricity consumption tax (huh?) of $.21, totalling $76.35. Billing period says Nov. 12 - Jan. 14 (63 days(?). My calculations would indicate that is 32 days.

The actual reading was done on Jan. 14 (6370) -same date as bill, and an actual reading prior to that was done on Nov. 12 (5974), equalling 396.

It doesn't make sense to me and I have tried calling them (for a wait time of at least 15 minutes, so I hung up). I then sent them an email with no response as of yet.

Can someone interpret this for me?

[Resident 2B]

CallmeD,

I am only trying to help here. :)

I believe that their days are calculated correctly. Here are my calculations that tie out with the days PSNH have supplied.

Nov 12 to Nov 30 = 18 Days
December = 31 Days
Jan 1 to Jan 14 = 14 Days

Total 63 days

I suggest that you go to their web site and check if the November reading, the last actual reading done before Jan 14th was an actual reading or an estimate. It is possible that the November reading was an estimate, and possibly a low estimate. They have a great web site for reviewing billing. It is much better than waiting on the phone.

Here is the web site that I have used to see what is going on with my bill.

https://www.psnh.com/customer/ViewAccount/AccountSummary.aspx

You may have to register, but that is free.

Good luck!

R2B

[callmeD]

R2B -

I appreciate your efforts to help, thanks.

I registered and discovered that it appears that bills are sent out more frequently than monthly in the past (I just never noticed it, I guess), and because I didn't receive a bill since Nov. 20, this may be the reason for such a high bill this time.

I'll just wait for a response to my email.

Thanks again.

[Flylady]

Imagine how I felt when I got my $415.00 bill yeaterday. Mind you I closed up my cottage for the winter on Oct 15th. Normally once the place is closed I average about an $8.00 per month bill. I called them, waited 18 minutes then spoke to a very nice (but tired) service rep. She explained that they switched to a new billing system last year in which the design was to assigned estimated meter readings based on the customers historical average when camps are closed for the winter or the meter readers simply can not read the meters (such as the last bad storm.) What they quickly have discovered once the bills using the estimated usage program began to be sent last month is the the estimated usage piece is not working correctly in some cases. So far for the last 2 months my estimated usage is in excess of 700 KW per month when at best the average should be around 20 Kw's. Anyway she was very professional and said the would reverse the full bill and asked for my patcience while they try to correct their system.

[Pineedles]

I'm sorry I have to say this (sign of the times), but I suspect it was a planned course that PSNH conducted. How can an electric user that normally shuts down during the winter months get a full "winter usage" estimated bill when they never used the electric to that extent in the winter before? Someone at PSNH had the brillant idea to do this to help their cash flow. Some investigation needs to be done! They knew they could offer "sincere" apologies after the fact, but their "cash flow" would be helped by those who just turned over the cash, no matter how long they could actually hang on to it. Are there any overseers of NH public utilities listening?

[brk-lnt]

I'm sorry I have to say this (sign of the times), but I suspect it was a planned course that PSNH conducted. How can an electric user that normally shuts down during the winter months get a full "winter usage" estimated bill when they never used the electric to that extent in the winter before? Someone at PSNH had the brillant idea to do this to help their cash flow. Some investigation needs to be done! They knew they could offer "sincere" apologies after the fact, but their "cash flow" would be helped by those who just turned over the cash, no matter how long they could actually hang on to it. Are there any overseers of NH public utilities listening?

Could be, but my guess is that most people called to complain BEFORE sending a crazy high payment. So the cash isn't really flowing.