Hino Electric Power Company is an independently owned and operated retail electric provider that operates in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. I first heard about them in this story at the Statesman.
Mr. Hinajosa filed a complaint with the state because he believed that ERCOT, which is both the name of the Texas power grid and the council that oversees it, had greatly over estimated his customer's energy usage during the blackouts that occurred in early February 2011. His customers have the old style mechanical meters.
From that story:
Hinojosa, however, is not shy about releasing his numbers. And they show his family-owned company taking a big hit during the cold spell.
To be clear, Hino’s is a special case. Briefly, the company’s business works like this: It estimates how much power it is going to need on a given day and then buys it in advance. If Hinojosa’s guess comes up short, he must buy more; if it’s long, he can sell the excess back to the grid. As grid manager, ERCOT handles the transactions.
But Hino’s customers use old meters that, unlike newer models, don’t relay real-time electric usage. Consequently, ERCOT uses a complex calculation — called a profile — of previous use, weather and other factors to estimate how much power the company’s customers actually used on a given day.
Unlike much of the rest of the state, which saw blackouts on Feb. 2, Hinojosa’s customers primarily experienced their outages in the days following. “We received calls all day long regarding outages as many of our customers were without power on both Feb. 3 and Feb. 4,” he wrote in testimony submitted to lawmakers during a Feb. 15 legislative hearing on the outages.
In theory, that meant that his customers used less electricity than Hinojosa ordered up for the day. But that’s not what ERCOT’s bill showed. The grid operator calculated that Hino Electric’s customers used more electricity because of the cold temperatures.
And because they used more, ERCOT concluded that Hino had under-purchased his power those days. With power still selling at a premium, Hino’s bill skyrocketed.
From a pdf - the written testimony he filed with the state : transcribed
On Feb 4th, over 300MW of load was curtailed in the Rio Grande Valley. AEP TCC and ERCOT have all of the data regarding these outages and curtailments to verify this. We received calls all day long regarding outages as many of our customers were without power on both Feb. 3 and Feb. 4. While the meters did not turn for our customers at this time, ERCOT, using its skewed and generator-biased protocols, estimated that our customers used more kWh than normal during this same period and charged us egregious and outrageous rates per unit...
Mr. Hinajosa has to estimate the amount of energy his customers will use and then buy that amount a day ahead as stated above. His customer's meters show an amount of energy used but ERCOT insists that the usage is much much higher (becasue it was cold). ERCOT used a load profile to estimate Hinajosa's usage.
During one of the conversations I had with my power company concerning my record usage, I was also told that an ERCOT load profile was used. I noticed that I may have been incorrectly categorized as a high energy user (High Winter Ratio) but I don't know if my power company is required to move my classification from the default which is 'High Winter Ratio' (RESHIWR). This same classification exists for most of Texas including the area for Hino Electric and all of DFW.
In both my case and Mr Hinajosa's case, ERCOT estimated our usage at much higher than what we believe is actually the case. Mr Hinajosa has actual mechanical meter data to back him up. Apparently not even that is enough to move the powers that be in Texas.
from the Statesman article:
So in late February he protested to ERCOT. “Why should the customer have to pay for the incompetence of generators?” he said. “Everybody loses, and the generators win.”
But but this week the grid operator denied his protest. ERCOT maintained its numbers were correct. “No one in the region was charged any prices outside of protocol,” ERCOT spokeswoman Dottie Roark wrote in an e-mail response to questions about the dispute.
Hinojosa said he intends to appeal based on data showing his customers’ actual usage, and claims that ERCOT actually owes him money.
I have been trying to show that my electric smartmeter made unrealistic claims about my energy usage during the February 2011 1st-4th period. I feel I have.
I have also been saying that I feel there may be more to this story that is along the lines of an intentional theft.
Mr Hinajosa should be a good case example. I'm not the only one saying what I'm saying. It is due to all of this that I will continue to believe that the new smartmeters are a convenient way to add extra usage onto customers. It couldnt be done to Hinajosa's customers becasue they have the old style meters but that didnt stop ERCOT from charging all of them as if they had actually used more. Much of the rest of the state has smartmeters and computer controlled networks where it can no longer be possible for ERCOT to be wrong.
Here's a bit more reading on this issue and Mr Hinajosa at the Texas Observer.
This diary is part of my smartmeter series.