SAN ANTONIO, Texas — KENS 5 heard from many, many people about the winter storm credit CPS Energy offered in April. The electric company said that if you lost power at all during the historic storm, you would get at minimum credit of $8.75, which amounts to a refund of the monthly flat Electric Service Availability charge.
Those who went without power for two to four days would get credits totaling between $50 and $100. Most of us only got $8.75, despite experiencing long periods of time with without power.
KENS 5 heard you, and most of you said it just did not add up. So, we asked CPS Energy to further investigate the power outage in two households of KENS 5 employees. (KENS 5 employees were chosen because, for privacy purposes, they needed to agree to let CPS Energy employees review their meter data.)
Both individuals ended up receiving much bigger credits after their meters were inspected; one received $50, while the other got $75. You might qualify for more, too.
Memories of those snowy, cold February days without power still have the power to chill us months later. CPS Energy customer Kat McGarity was out of power for a long stretch of time.
“Close to three days,” she said.
She, like many of us, got the minimum of an $8.75 credit from CPS Energy.
“I lost more than that in my car, sitting there trying to warm up children,” said McGarity.
“We issued the bill credits as a way to say, 'We understand it was a bad experience during the winter storm,'” said DeAnna Hardwick, vice president of customer success for CPS Energy.
That amount did not do much to thaw some residents' feelings about not having power for days.
“It was like a slap in the face,” McGarity said.
CPS Energy told KENS 5 it used mass meter data to determine those credits.
“Analyzed user data as a whole and gave us calculations and bill credits,” Hardwick said.
Yet customers who request an individual review of their meter data might find they qualify for the larger credit of $50 to $100.
“Instead of just looking at the data as a total, we looked at each person’s individual meter data,” said Hardwick. “So, we went through, had our engineers analyze it, see if there was something that we missed and if we did, we wanted to make it right.”
Call CPS Energy customer service at (210)353-2222 to request your meter data be individually reviewed if you think you were without power for two days or more during the winter storm.
You should know, however, that there is no guarantee you will get a larger credit if you have your meter data reviewed. The process will also take some time, about two to three weeks before you get an answer. But for many of us, it is worth calling to ask.