PEA bill higher than ever in 6 years

[transam]

My monthly bill is usually between 1300 and 1600bht, I only use A/C in my bedroom to cool it for a few hours then the ceiling fan takes over, downstairs has never needed A/C, but this year it would have been helpful, downstairs is open plan with 4 ceiling fans, usually 2 on all day.

The bill this year for March/April was 2100bht, for April/May, it was 2400bht..

2 of my friends doubled to over 5000bht.......😬

[fredwiggy]

3 minutes ago, Liverpool Lou said:

So what did PEA say about it when you queried the bill, a bill for which the charges and consumption are clearly shown and the total can be calculated and checked?

I haven't talked to them yet. The bill should be lower in any event, by units used.

[bluejets]

Wife's aunty complained once to the PEA about highly excessive charge. They had threatened to cut the power if the bill was not paid.

I went around to the house, found the meters to be on a pole on the opposite side of the road ( not unusual) BUT......... over 3 metres from the ground,

I asked aunty if the meter reader carried a ladder with him or a telescope or binoculars to read the meter, to which she said "not to my knowledge".

So I said she should ask the PEA the same question.

 

Excess charge was credited, meter never moved but bills are back to normal. 

Back to the averaging approach  I suspect. She's happy, PEA are happy so mia phen rai I guess.

[HampiK]

On 5/26/2024 at 6:04 PM, fredwiggy said:

My point was yes, the AC usage increased to keep up with the heat, although I only used it after dark until 5 AM the next morning, as usual, and I didn't use the pump to water the grass but two times , instead of around 18 or so a month like usual, and I was not home 9 days last month, which altogether should have reduced my power consumption. It did say it increased 61 units, which should have cost 285 baht, which would have made the bill around 1785 and not 2000, so something is wrong somewhere.

I think you should state this in your initial post.. the water pump I guess use much less electric than your AC!

 

And as you told you use your AC in night, at a month which is much more hot than average. So this will probably your extra usage costs.
You not changed anything, but your AC has to do a lot of extra work.

[BritManToo]

On 5/26/2024 at 2:59 PM, Liverpool Lou said:

Yes, agreed.  All these daft posts claiming that "my electric bill has increased and I haven't used any more power than previously" when they have a detailed bill that can easily be checked.   I wonder why none of these complainants ever report back here about the results of the PEA/MEA's subsequent investigations into these "abnormally high" bills?   

My electric bill also increased 374bht for 94 units, but we did use the bedroom aircon a bit last month.

[Liverpool Lou]

On 5/26/2024 at 6:26 PM, fredwiggy said:

On 5/26/2024 at 6:21 PM, Liverpool Lou said:

So what did PEA say about it when you queried the bill, a bill for which the charges and consumption are clearly shown and the total can be calculated and checked?

I haven't talked to them yet.

Any update on their investigation!?

[fredwiggy]

1 hour ago, Liverpool Lou said:

Any update on their investigation!?

Meter was okay, they saw error on units, corrected it, bill lowered 215 baht

[patman30]

knock off the mains, check the meter
they turn each circuit on one by one
and turn appliances on one by one (at each circuit)
check the meter each time
buy a plug in meter to confirm watts of each appliance

[Stocky]

On 5/28/2024 at 6:59 AM, bluejets said:

Wife's aunty complained once to the PEA about highly excessive charge. They had threatened to cut the power if the bill was not paid.

I went around to the house, found the meters to be on a pole on the opposite side of the road ( not unusual) BUT......... over 3 metres from the ground,

I asked aunty if the meter reader carried a ladder with him or a telescope or binoculars to read the meter, to which she said "not to my knowledge".

So I said she should ask the PEA the same question.

 

Excess charge was credited, meter never moved but bills are back to normal. 

Back to the averaging approach  I suspect. She's happy, PEA are happy so mia phen rai I guess.

This is not unusual, a few months ago I watched our local meter reader's progress down our soi, for one meter placed high on a pole he nipped into the seamstress shop and borrowed a chair to be able to get in range of the RFID. All our meters are digitally read but the range seems to be about 1m - after climbing off the stool, putting his shoes back on again, he returned the stool to the seamstress with a polite wai of thanks. 

[UWEB]

On 5/26/2024 at 6:26 PM, fredwiggy said:

I haven't talked to them yet. The bill should be lower in any event, by units used.

May be you have got a new Digital Meter installed? Some 10 days ago I got one and the Meter is showing a 20% higher consumption from the Grid without changing anything in my House eg. higher use of Aircon etc.

[scubascuba3]

16 minutes ago, UWEB said:

May be you have got a new Digital Meter installed? Some 10 days ago I got one and the Meter is showing a 20% higher consumption from the Grid without changing anything in my House eg. higher use of Aircon etc.

In that same period was it hotter than the previous month?

[UWEB]

4 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

In that same period was it hotter than the previous month?

I have two Meters, one from PEA and my own Digital one . So very easy for me to check if the PEA Meter is showing correct Numbers or not. In the past the old PEA Meter and my one was showing the same consumption during the billing Period, now after 10 days with the new Meter I have a discrepancy of 16 Units already.

[scubascuba3]

6 hours ago, UWEB said:

I have two Meters, one from PEA and my own Digital one . So very easy for me to check if the PEA Meter is showing correct Numbers or not. In the past the old PEA Meter and my one was showing the same consumption during the billing Period, now after 10 days with the new Meter I have a discrepancy of 16 Units already.

Let us know what happens, can't imagine they'll replace the meter

[bluejets]

On 5/29/2024 at 4:07 PM, Stocky said:

This is not unusual,

Possibly....however the meter I referred to was the old WF inductive disc meter so visible reading a necessity.

[bluejets]

8 hours ago, UWEB said:

one from PEA and my own Digital one

digital one from China by any chance??

PEA meter would be checked and stamped for accuracy.

Your would have been lucky to be subjected to quality control of the outer case at best.

 

Use an old WF or Email disc meter for checking.....we used to buy them new for around AUD$150.00.

Edited June 4 by bluejets

[Crossy]

8 hours ago, UWEB said:

I have two Meters, one from PEA and my own Digital one . So very easy for me to check if the PEA Meter is showing correct Numbers or not. In the past the old PEA Meter and my one was showing the same consumption during the billing Period, now after 10 days with the new Meter I have a discrepancy of 16 Units already.

 

Do you have grid-tie solar perchance??

 

We have had reports of some electronic meters totting up grid export on the total and PEA billing for it!! If you can I would disable export on your solar (you're not getting credit for it anyway).

 

There's actually a similar report on a US-centric solar forum of electronic meters charging for export.

[Crossy]

1 hour ago, bluejets said:

digital one from China by any chance??

 

I will say that our Hiking (Tomzn) electronic meter does agree with the PEA meter within 1% which is certainly good enough for my requirements.

 

[UWEB]

52 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

Do you have grid-tie solar perchance??

 

We have had reports of some electronic meters totting up grid export on the total and PEA billing for it!! If you can I would disable export on your solar (you're not getting credit for it anyway).

 

There's actually a similar report on a US-centric solar forum of electronic meters charging for export.

Export to Grid is disabled since the Solar System was installed, so can't be the reason.

[UWEB]

32 minutes ago, UWEB said:

Export to Grid is disabled since the Solar System was installed, so can't be the reason.

@Crossy Is it possible that I'm exporting to the Grid even the Solar System is set to " zero Export Limitation"? The Dashboard of my Solar System shows always zero export to the Grid(sometimes 0.1), but under Code 300 of the new Digital Meter it is showing 18 kwh. As far as I can read from attached code 300 shows total Export.

Spec กฟภ.กจพ.1-ป(มต)-001-2565 f.pdf

[BeastOfBodmin]

Maybe a little off topic, but is it possible to get a daily or hourly breakdown of electricity units used from PEA? Short of logging in every day it is difficult to get a handle on how the power is actually comsumed.

 

Thinking about solar, and I am aware most of the power consumption is A/C at night (when the sun don't shine).

Above, KannikaP mentioned a WiFi Thingy in the main fusebox that beamed data to a phone app. That might be a solution. Any ideas what that entails?

 

So far I have this from PEA (we moved in permanently early April 2024).

 

Edited July 19 by BeastOfBodmin
Added a couple of words.

[norbra]

For 10 years my units per month have been similar, but May and June this year were both up 25%.

July units were back to historical levels.

Some months ago an MEA guy looked at the meter took some details and left,same guy returned after last billing period took photos of meter and again to some details.

Unusual,do I have a dodgy meter or am I a suspected tamperer?

My home in Australia did have a faulty meter, it got noisy at times when this happened the disc stopped spinning.

Edited July 19 by norbra