Overcharged for electricity due to faulty meter clock

My wife and I moved to the island a few months ago and are living in a flat in St Peter Port. The flat runs its heating and hot water on Economy 12 electricity but we were surprised at the size of our first quarterly bill.

After some investigation, I discovered that the clock on the Guernsey Electricity meter was two hours and 13 minutes fast. The timer in the flat, which switches on the storage heaters and the hot water immersion heater, was set to the correct time. The result is that all the electricity we have used for heating and hot water in the morning and at lunchtime has been charged at the higher rate – the wrong clock-setting in the meter has meant we have been missing the Economy 12 lower tariff.

It was explained to me that the reason for the electricity meter not having the right time is because there is a problem with the older meters connected to our substation receiving the correct time signals. These timing signals are apparently pulsed through the electricity supply but there is a 'known problem' with this 'datalink' on our substation.

Of the 10 old-style meters (without an internal clock) in our block of flats, eight of them had the wrong time. The time errors were all different and varied from five minutes right up to 12 hours out. Most were over two hours in error, which could result in the higher bills we had noticed.

Once I had contacted Guernsey Electricity and complained, an engineer was sent around to change our meter for a new one the very next day. When asked, he was also kind enough to reset the time on my neighbours' meters but they will need to ask individually for a new meter to be fitted. There will also be a correction to pay us back an estimate of the overcharging on the last quarter's bill.

However, while this was a 'known problem' at Guernsey Electricity concerning our substation, we were never informed to check the time nor, to the best of our knowledge, was the previous flat owner, who had lived here for many years and so the correction was only made after I had requested it.

So, if your accommodation is set up to run on Economy 12, I recommend you check your electricity meter has the correct time on it or you may not be using the Economy 12 tariff you think you are.

REG BARKER.

Editor's footnote: David Hipple, finance director at Guernsey Electricity, replies:

'Thank you for the opportunity to respond to your reader's letter.

We would like to thank our customer for getting in touch with us in the first instance and allowing us to resolve their issue swiftly. We have become aware that there is an issue with our network communications with a small number of meters, which may affect the time on the clock. We are working to resolve this problem by sending further signals to reset clocks in areas that may have been affected.

If we find we are unable to get the correct time to a meter, we will exchange it for one with an internal clock. However, we would also ask our customers to check their meters regularly and to notify us if they find anything unusual – this will ensure they pay the correct amount for their electricity.

As a matter of course, where we do find a meter time issue, we examine the customer's account to ensure they have not been over or undercharged and if they have been, correct their account accordingly.'