TEMPLE (March 29, 2010)—Oncor released the results Monday of the third week of side-by-side electric meter tests in Temple, and the numbers weren’t much changed.
Digital smart meters have been installed alongside mechanical meters at a dozen homes in Temple and another 12 in Killeen, and during the third week, the readings at two of the homes in Temple were identical and the other 10 differed only slightly.
The results were comparable to the those recorded during the first and second weeks of the tests, which Oncor arranged in response to complaints from residents who said electric bills jumped substantially after the new digital meters were installed.
The company defends the accuracy of the new meters, and says the higher bills were the result of unusually cold winter temperatures.
The Public Utility Commission announced last week that more than 1 million Texas consumers can now check online to find out how much electricity they're using.
The PUC has launched a new Web site that allows customers with the new digital smart meters to manage residential and business bills by figuring out how much energy they used in 15-minute periods.
The Web site is available to more than 1 million customers of Oncor Electric Delivery and CenterPoint Energy.
Once American Electric Power begins installing smart meters later this year, the PUC says more than 6.3 million Texas customers will be able to manage electricity use through SmartMeterTexas.com.
The Web site is designed for customers in competitive retail electric markets.
