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Administrative snafu means 35,000 National Grid customers will get a big break on their bill
The ruling can save ratepayers hundreds in utility bills.
Thousands of National Grid customers will get a welcome relief on their utility bills after the company failed to bill them on time.
The Department of Public Utilities sent a letter to National Grid on Monday, saying the company can bill no more than two months’ revenue from the customers affected by the ongoing systemic billing system failure.
So, those who received a bill more than 60 days late for October and November are off the hook. If those customers have already paid and were impacted by the technical issue, they will be refunded.
The DPU is investigating whether National Grid can recover the lost income due to this order.
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“Massachusetts ratepayers have endured a cold winter marked by high rates and high bills,” the letter said. National Grid’s systemic billing error “compounded these challenges.”
The DPU said it is important to bill customers on time because delays can “wreak havoc” on a family’s budget and that it is “simply unfair to expect customers to pay multiple months’ worth of bills.”
National Grid only recently informed the DPU that it had failed to bill over 35,000 customers in October and November, despite knowing of the failure beginning in November.
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Due to the delay, the DPU’s Consumer Division fielded hundreds of calls without the information necessary to respond.
By March 31, 92% of those customers had resumed receiving bills, leaving about 3,000 without bills for the past five or six months. For those who recently received their bills again, it reflects three to four months of consumption at once.
“The Department cannot tolerate such a systemic and uncorrected failure,” the letter said.
The DPU said that failing to send timely bills violates the department’s consumer protection regulations and precedent. Although the department can give some flexibility, there is a limit.
“Nothing in our regulations or precedent … permits an extended and unaddressed systemic error of this magnitude,” the letter said.
In response, National Grid said in a statement, “Affordability is a core component of our mission to provide safe, reliable energy and we sincerely apologize to our customers impacted by the billing issue.”
The company continued by saying it recognizes the delayed bills’ impact on household budgets and will cooperate with the DPU’s order.
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