r/newbrunswickcanada • u/namastay_home • 4d ago
Moncton woman solved NB Power consumption spike
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u/Mel_Ran220 4d ago
I had my “smart meter” installed about 2/3 months ago and there was no real change for my bill, maybe 10$ was the difference. So I’m not sure . So maybe This meter number bill number might be the answer? Honestly does anyone really look at their meter? And also they switch them out so fast maybe it is the wrong ones being put on???
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u/Letoust 4d ago
I don’t have a smart meter and my bill was sky-high for February. It has nothing to do with smart meters being installed, just a coincidence
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u/DisturbedForever92 4d ago
Same experience here.
My house had a smart meter installed and a price hike.
My relative's house didn't get a smart meter and also had a price hike.
Rates are just getting higher, and we went from a mild 2024 winter that camouflaged some of the previous rate increase, to a cold 2025 winter with even more rate increased
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u/LonelyTurnip2297 3d ago
Yeah, it’s almost like the smart meters have nothing to do with the increase.
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u/Rexis23 3d ago
I wasn't paying this much when it was -40 a couple years ago. The weather is a BS excuse.
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u/ObsidianOverlord 2d ago
"Weather" is more than just how cold you remember it being at one particular time.
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u/casadevava 4d ago
I had no significant change after getting a smart meter either. This year was colder, and rates are higher. I burned significantly more wood this year, as did everyone I know who burns wood. It just took more heat this year to stay comfortable. It was colder and it was windy.
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u/stilljustacatinacage 3d ago
Also people don't realize what an insulative effect snow has. Having 2 feet of snow on all sides of your house will reduce your heating bill considerably. There's a cost to these "nice winters" we've been having even before you consider that we'll all be dead in 20 years.
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u/ianqm 3d ago
Yup, that is what it was, coldest winter since going back to around 2020, and this year was a windy winter, and wind sucks heat out of a house.
Add over 30% increase on a monthly bill in the past 2 years (electricity rate increases, rental rate increases, service charge increases, Variance Account increases, and of course the HST now goes up too) and you have higher bills even if the weather was the same.
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u/Black_orchid998 4d ago
This is one , I wonder if there are more. That would interesting.
My bill actually went down. I have a 2500 sq foot house, baseboard heaters on 18, 3 heat pumps on occasion, main is wood stove , and use heat 2x per week in the garage. I wfh, pump out laundry all week and cook alot.. And mine is only 275. Last year it was 422.
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u/Calm-Presentation369 3d ago
This happened to us when we moved here! It was an old house and we kept it so cold that we had to wear sweaters and puffers and toques all the time, yet the bill stayed high. The guy in the apartment next door was loafing around in a t-shirt and boxers and presumably thinking how great it is that it only cost $65 a month to keep his apartment at 25.
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u/NotThatValleyGirl 3d ago
I'm really hoping NB Power corrected this and either gave you refunds or credits... but my past dealings with them lead me to assume they will stop at nothing to extract as much money from customers as they can get away with, and you never saw an ounce of corrective response from them.
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u/Calm-Presentation369 3d ago
NB Power did credit our account, and I don't think they ever tried to bill the neighbour. The bill would have been thousands of dollars. I don't think he could have paid it, though he never did turn down the heat even when his bill went from $65/month to $650/month.
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u/FtonKaren 3d ago
I checked mine and we're golden, my usage is up, but my usage is up, and I feel like I am paying for what I use so am feeling good about things
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u/Davisaurus_ 3d ago
She may have solved her particular issue, but she didn't solve the greater issue, as there is no greater issue.
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u/CletusCanuck 4d ago
OMG guess what I'm doing as soon as I get home from work... my power bills have always been not great but this past winter has been ridiculous. My next door neighbor's bill is less than < 50% of mine.
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u/Flimsy_Situation_506 4d ago
Same.. checking mine when I get home because my bill went from $533 to $1150 and then $1230 just last month. But I haven’t changed my usage only bought new washer, dryer, fridge and stove that are supposed to be energy efficient compared to the 1990’s ones I had
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u/RedFacedBob2 3d ago
This same problem happend years ago before smart meters with my parents and the next door neighbor. Parents got his bill and they got ours with theirs being alot less then my parents bill. When the mistake was realized about 8 years had gone by and NB power tried to make my parents back pay thousands of dollars for all those years they screwed up. He fought it with the arguement that the mistake was on their part and his bill was paid in good faith and on time every month and he wasn't paying what they were trying to make him pay. After a few phone calls and and lengthy phone call with the Head of NB power and the local MLA it got dropped.Dont let NB power dick around just get your local MLA on them to get this problem fixed before it gets worse.
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u/Sad_Low3239 3d ago
Where on your NB power account do you see your meter number?
Edit nvm found it. Download pdf bill, on the right.
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u/voicelesswonder53 3d ago
First bill with our smart meter was the lowest monthly consumption we've had in the last year, plus we got a rebate on top of that. Go figure. It pays to not use the dryer.
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u/Syribo 3d ago
I actually began checking our meter daily (digital, not smart). For us, I know for a fact it was the heat pump not being able to function alone in minus temperatures. The electric backup heat strips suck up electric like crazy. The kWh were raising incredibly faster on the days below freezing. There was one nice day the heat didn’t come on at all and I did two loads of laundry (washer and dryer), took a shower for 45 minutes, ran the dishwasher, meal prepped by using the oven for hours, and I believe the kWh went up by 20 in that time period.
But a day below freezing, it was going up over 100 without me using any of those devices even once a day. Went from $660, $630 and a $595 bill to now a $375 one after the last month was more mild.
Now, the people out there who say their bills are doubled but they run wood stoves for heat… that absolutely boggles my mind and has to be some kind of issue. For us though, I unfortunately know it’s the damn back up heat. I have nothing to compare it to since we just moved into this house in autumn.
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u/hearwa 3d ago
Can you disable that? I opted for a heat pump without the backup "emergency heat" because my house already has electric registers with smart thermostats. If my heat pump can't maintain a temperature above 18 degrees my registers kick in. And when they do, they're electric registers so my usage goes up like I expect. But on the rare -20+ days I appreciate this.
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u/Syribo 3d ago
I think in the thermostats settings you can do that, it’s that menu that’s for the installers and hvac techs, but I got into it myself during the winter. I tried to change the cutoff to make the emergency heat only come on if the temperature got down to like 14C but it was coming on a lot anyway because the heat pump just couldn’t do anything in that really cold January and February. It’s a six year old unit and pretty big, but it’s just not efficient in below freezing temps at all. I know they have newer ones that can actually perform well below 0.
When I saw we used 4000kwh in one month I couldn’t believe it and I eventually figured out it was the emergency heat.
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u/LavisAlex 4d ago
The latest rumour i heard according to this is that the smart meters sample then extrapolate costs, but i dont think that really explains higher bills.
Ill have to go check ours to see what it says.
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u/sox07 4d ago
and like all the other rumors this is complete bullshit
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u/Black_orchid998 3d ago
Yes the people misread that " reads the meter every 15 minutes " and ran with it to mean " rounding it up to 15 minutes " of usage.
The Facebook rumours are insane
The most hilarious thing is the FB protest they are calling " extortion " ....ummmmm do you know what extortion actually means ????
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u/imoftendisgruntled 4d ago
The smart meters don't do that, but back when meter readers had to physically read every meter every month, that practice was common.
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u/I_Like_Coookies 3d ago
When I first heard of these complaints with smart meters, this was exactly what I thought was happening. Wow NB power, this is so embarrassing and unprofessional, how can NB power continue as a viable entity?? Lepreau is down again and the smart meter shenanigans? And we pay numerous individuals that work there >$200k, and the CEO is in the $500k range?! Let's please sell this organization to someone that can actually run a power company, NB power is killing this province and needs to go.
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u/Comfortable_West7399 19h ago
It may have been said already... But has anyone looked at PEI, NS power bills during this same time frame?
My friend on the island is complaining about the cost.. no smart meter and different power company... What is their problem?
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u/tickler08 3d ago
My neighbour and I. With two different size homes. Had exactly an $618 bill last month. That seems suspicious
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u/hockeytemper 3d ago
I'm an New Brunswicker living in Thailand. Its very common that neighbours tap into your electric over here. Always have to watch for new wiring popping up around the house..
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u/howismyspelling 4d ago
"BuTs IT'S BeEN colDer tHIS yEAR!!"
"nBPOwEr hAs doNe NoTHIng wroNg!!"
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u/DisturbedForever92 4d ago
How do you explain higher usage in houses without the smart meter?
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u/howismyspelling 4d ago
I didn't say anything about the smart meter. And if you look into my comment history on the matter, I've actually put a lot more weight on human error (or malicious intent really) over smart meters.
I always get downvoted but in 2017 when SNB did a switch of their tax assessment system, they had an incredible deficit they had to make up for. Magically, that year, a slew of residents saw increases in property taxes, collectively amounting to millions of dollar (which magically covered the losses). In the investigation, it was found that humans working at SNB manually and maliciously entered false information into PIDs to say those properties had done large scale renovations, which they didn't. Several of them had zero change in their properties, but were alleged to have dont $100k of renos. SNB blamed it on something, but several directors had left or been shuffled right after that scandal.
Now, we're dealing with a utility that has a massive deficit over failed continued investments, and paying a former CEO who is no longer in the organization half a million dollars as salary, and nobody seems to think that something nefarious such as false data claiming higher power usage at the residential level could be possible. And while OPs case might not be nefarious, clearly they made a mistake, and humans make plenty of mistakes. But everyone loves to say "NBPower has done nothing wrong" as I mocked above.
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u/not_that_mike 3d ago
Occam’s Razor would suggest the reason is simply the weather and billing cycles. Any other explanation quickly gets into tin foil hat territory.
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u/DisturbedForever92 4d ago
I didn't say anything about the smart meter.
To be fair you didn't say much of substance at all, I was mostly replying to the colder weather comment.
And no, I hadn't gone through your post history before replying.
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u/howismyspelling 4d ago
That's okay, I know I didn't say anything in the beginning since all I was doing was mocking those who come here to say it's definitely not NBPower's fault
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u/hearwa 3d ago
I don't see why you're being down voted. You gave a good example of known corruption and likened it to NB Power now. It makes sense to me and is as good a theory as any.
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u/ObsidianOverlord 3d ago
Because it's baseless nonsense?
You don't need much to explain why bills are higher in the winter. You can see your energy consumption, you can see the rate, there are no steps in this process that can house this level of conspiracy.
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u/N0x1mus 4d ago
I personally have already mentioned this in past replies to these posts. It’s a rare occurrence but it’s possible. It’s a user input problem. NB Power can’t predict a third party contractor entering incorrect information in the system. There’s no way to fix it unless someone puts eyes on the meter in the field.
These incorrect meter numbers can be tracked back to the contractor that installed them. It’ll flag their installation for review if multiple issues arise from the same external contractor.
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u/CannaScuzzyB 3d ago
Oh it's dirty.....request your event log from your smart meter and you'll notice the "peak demand" calculations being done as you sleep. (12:00am, and you'll notice a peak demand reset is done that coincides with the kWh usage being INSERTED into your data...
They can lie all they want....but it's hard to dispute data that is protected by the privacy act (and trust me, they've disputed their own data...)
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u/Faulteh12 3d ago
Show the math
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u/CannaScuzzyB 3d ago
Request your event log from NB Power (you want the events and the billing data)....and then you'll be able to match the 12:00am time to the "demand reset" event and then you'll see the kWh being added to your bill when it should only be your consumption usage.....not peak demand.
You'll notice they won't hand it over....I had to quote the privacy act as it went over 30 days which accounts for a refusal..
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u/Faulteh12 3d ago edited 3d ago
So you have yours. Just show yours
You know NB power considers anything from 8am to 12am to be peak demand right?Is this what you could be seeing?
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u/CannaScuzzyB 3d ago
Correct.
https://www.nbpower.com/en/save-energy/beat-the-peak/what-is-peak-demand
Now at the residential level, they don't charge for demand (or say they don't)
They DO charge at the business / commercial level on demand.At the end of the day, running my dryer should not be double the consumption when peak demand rates are not supposed to be charged to residences...
So my data (because I even have it plotted)...shows I get charged high demand for the morning and evening....yet shouldn't be charged for it
It also showed "EOI" on my meter which means "end of interval" where they register peak demand calculations on your consumption. This was directly from itron support as the NB Power guys on the phone went quiet when I started talking about the meter code...
Fucking crooks.
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u/Faulteh12 3d ago
I think you're misinterpreting your data:
A demand reset on a power meter means resetting the recorded maximum power usage (demand) back to zero, which typically happens automatically at the start of each billing periodNothing in your data suggests they're billing you anything extra.
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u/DadBodWithSmallRod 3d ago
The peak demand part is the issue. Taking averages part of it aswell.
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u/ObsidianOverlord 3d ago
There is no peak demand, this is not up for debate, you can see the rate that they charge you on the bill.
All it takes is one middle school level math problem to prove it.
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u/almisami 3d ago
Systemic clerical errors would indeed be a plausible explanation for what we've been seeing.
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u/maritime_coffee 4d ago
Wow, that is not something I would have ever thought to look at. I guess I know what I’ll be doing now.
Thanks for letting us all know about this.