Understanding Your Power Bill

1
Understanding Your Power Bill
2

• A consumer that is trying to conserve energy and
  save money will find that monitoring their power
  bill is a great place to start. Most of the
  statements from the various electric or gas
  companies will offer the same types of
  information although the format may be a little
  different from one to the other.
• The first thing listed is a record of
  consumption. There will be both what has been
  used in the past and what the current usage is on
  this statement. This information was read from
  the meter by a technician. In some cases some
  companies will estimate the consumption once in a
  while in an effort to save time and money. A
  consumer can call and challenge an estimate if
  they wish.
• A power bill will also include other information
  such as the consumers address name account
  number and the date that the statement comes due.
  Once the customer has gone past the due date and
  the service is scheduled to be disconnected the
  information concerning this will be on the
  statement as well. There is often other
  information such as the utilitys address and
  contact phone numbers for customer service and
  sometimes a separate number will be listed for
  emergencies such as outages leaks downed lines
  or broken pipelines. There will also be the
  mailing address email address and website of the
  utility listed somewhere on the statement in most
  cases.
• A power bill will also include which category the
  customers service falls in whether its
  business commercial or residential. It is
  possible to find other information on the rates
  that are being charged as well.

3

• There will also be a notation of the last payment
  that was made reflected on some utility
  statements as a credit. If a consumer isnt sure
  when or how much of their balance they paid this
  is a good way to check those statistics out.
• A power bill will also reflect the taxes and the
  maintenance charges on it somewhere in the body.
  If the customer has further questions about this
  portion of the statement they can feel free to
  contact customer service for a detailed
  explanation from their power company. Typically
  it is this portion of the statement that reflects
  miscellaneous charges that are necessary to
  maintain the facility or utility and all of the
  overhead costs that are needed to keep a plant
  operational. These are the things that the
  consumer is actually paying for since the power
  is brought to the customer at the same price that
  the utility pays to generate it.
• In some instances the customer will also see a
  service address in numerical form. This is for
  the utilitys records and actually means nothing
  to the customer. There may also be other
  information such as the statement numbers for
  easy access should they need to contact the
  utility concerning their statement or charges on
  it.
• A power bill sometimes will have important
  updates and messages to the consumer on them as
  well. This saves the cost of additional mailings
  and postage so it is important that the consumer
  makes sure to take the time to look over their
  statement each month.