The Orlando Utilities Commission issued $1.2 million in billing adjustments last year for businesses that were overcharged for electricity due to a wiring configuration issue, some for as long as 20 years, according to the municipal-owned utility.
Two local car dealerships, plus AdventHealth are among the impacted businesses, per documents OUC released in response to public records requests: specifically, 400 pages of “personal notes that should not have been released as they are exempt from public record requests,” OUC Director of Communications Michelle Lynch wrote in an email.
Still, the giant document of personal notes kept by a top OUC executive were released by the utility to other parties, who later shared the records with Central Florida Public Media. The wide-ranging information contained in those notes includes language that, for some, raises questions about OUC’s transparency and accountability to the public.
“No matter what our electric revenues will be taking a hit,” reads one section of the notes, where OUC staff discuss ways to “mitigate the exposure” from the billing errors.
The notes continue: “Do you want us to process this year or next for this and more. Spread out? … Will be buried in energy revenue. An explanation like….one time adjustment for xxx….. higher heat wave in August helps.”
“No revenue was ‘buried,’” Lynch wrote in an email, responding to questions about those notes. “It was returned to the impacted commercial customers and the broader residential customer base was not impacted.”
The wiring issue that caused the double billing impacted 16 of approximately 1,000 of OUC’s commercial customers with Convenient Lighting contracts for outdoor lighting services, Lynch said. Among them were two local car dealerships that were both overcharged for 20 years, and have since been reimbursed: Starling Chevrolet and Reed Nissan.
OUC reimbursed Starling Chevrolet $800,000, Lynch said. Attempts to reach staff with the car dealership who could speak to the overcharges by phone were unsuccessful.
“OUC was transparent with these customers, corrected the issue, and provided refunds or credits to correct the account according to policy,” Lynch wrote in an email.
“Do you want us to process this year or next for this and more. Spread out? … Will be buried in energy revenue. An explanation like….one time adjustment for xxx….. higher heat wave in August helps.”OUC notes, August 2023
Initially, OUC denied there were impacts to another business mentioned in the notes, AdventHealth. But in response to more specific follow-up questions, Lynch apologized and acknowledged impacts to the healthcare provider’s Lego building in Ivanhoe Village, built in 2022.
“This issue was caught early and a temporary fix was created to prevent double billing. However, we are coordinating with Advent’s administration to schedule a permanent correction,” Lynch wrote.
Orlando residents and members of Florida’s solar industry who have raised concerns about OUC’s PeakSHIFT proposal say the double-billing incidents create even more reason to be skeptical of the utility’s transparency and accountability to the public, moving forward.
“I think that having customers you're overcharging for 20 years raises a lot of questions,” said Heaven Campbell, Florida Program Director for Solar United Neighbors.
OUC’s proposed package of changes to how the utility charges customers for electricity would impact residential and small commercial customers, to start. Among the proposed changes are reduced incentives for rooftop solar customers, who get compensated for sending power they generate back to the electric grid in a process called net metering.
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OUC has said the reduced rooftop solar incentives are intended to make billing more “equitable” for all customers. Currently, non-solar users are paying on behalf of those using solar, according to the utility. But less than 5 percent of OUC’s customers use net metering currently, raising concerns for Florida Solar Energy Industries Association President Bill Johnson.
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“I think it comes down to a question of trust,” Johnson said. “They're asking us to trust them, that their analysis and their assumptions and stuff about PeakSHIFT are in the community's best interest. But clearly, if they're doing things like this, I think the question of trust is a reasonable one.”
Since discovering the double-billing issue, and making the utility’s Audit-Finance Committee aware of it late last year, OUC has worked toward quality control improvements: including piloting a Risk Internal Control Mapping and Compliance program with Workiva.
“Process improvements have been made between our engineering, design and construction teams to ensure additional quality control to prevent this from occurring,” Lynch wrote in an email.
OUC’s governing board will vote Tuesday on whether or not to advance the PeakSHIFT program.
Editor's note: OUC is a corporate sponsor of Central Florida Public Media but does not have any editorial control over our stories.
