I think WAPA is screwing us over.

I have two comments:

1. Do you monitor your own meter? I write down the reading from the meter every few days, so I know my day to day usage (with a good idea of what amount to expect on the monthly bill). Mine will increase on days that I do laundry or have overnight visitors, but I can easily know what is causing the increase when watching meter reading frequently. (WAPA does not read meter in person since installing the smart meter that they can read internally).

2. Are there other residence on property that might be using your electric for their laundry, pump, air conditioning, hot water heater, or other uses? You can check your breaker box and turn off each to determine which breaker works which rooms. If you find a breaker that does not handle anything on your residence, then leave breaker turned off to keep other people from using it.

#1. Stupid me, no I haven't been. I will be from now on though! How do I chart it and like... compare with wapa? By dates? Sorry no clue on this stuff at all. Should be common sense but it confuses me lol.

#2 Not possible. Middle of nowhere with no houses around at all.

Oh and FWIW my friends who live not far and have solar and usually a credit are getting $80-$120 bills. Something's not right. Wapa trying to get us to pay for the hospitals debt? :X

To answer A&A2VI --- How do I chart it and like... compare with wapa? By dates? Sorry no clue on this stuff at all. Should be common sense but it confuses me lol.

As for the readings, I just write the meter reading on a calendar. You could also make an ongoing list to show the reading & date.
WHEN the BILL arrives and shows the ending meter reading and the date, then I can compare it to the meter reading on my calendar on the specific date (or near the date they used on the bill if I did not list it on the specific date).

I take a picture of the meter everyday or so (still have old meter) and then record the reading and calculate the daily usage. Compare the reading to what's on your statement. You can also check the consumption history page for you account/meter on the WAPA web site which will show last meter reading date and value as well as previous months usage. It's possible you don't have a smart meter and they are using some estimated readings. These will balance out with the next actual reading but could be higher or lower in between.
The statements do not indicate whether the last reading was estimated or not but the web site shows the last actual reading. Mine was stuck at March until they finally updated it a few weeks ago when I complained but they didn't update it until a week after they actually took the reading. If you have an analog meter (with dials) do you know how to read it?

LOL! You were right about your subject line. My first thought was "Ya think?"

Ours made the same jump just this month. I assumed it was from being estimated. But I think now I'll monitor it for a while to make sure. At least I know we weren't alone.

Contact Public Services Commission to complain.

Here's how to read your meter.
http://www.viwapa.vi/Customers/MeterReading.aspx

Our rate is presently 23.27 kWh

You may wish to get a timer for your water heater.
If it on a separate breaker, you can turn it off and just have it on a couple hours a day.

I have mine on a timer.
Run it 2 hours a day instead of 24.
Plenty of hot water for my needs.
I never use hot water for laundry.

Our current rate (residential) through 12-31-16 is 29.27 cents per kilowatt according to the WAPA home page. The commercial rate is 32.29.

Yes, sorry.
Typo on rate.

Yea but estimates then we should see a decrease the nextbmkmyh to even it out. It's. y bill has been $120 every month why would they estimate it at $240 and 800kwh? Will see if I get anywhere on Tuesday

You can request WAPA to check your meter due to inaccuracies in billing.

maybe they were estimating it at the 120 rate and they finally read the meter?? that happened to a co worker, they estimated for over a year and then one 1 bill she was hit with all the back charges.
she now reads it daily and also calls them on the day it should be read and gives them the reading.

Nooooo, not Wapa. They have been nothing but good to you.

maybe they were estimating it at the 120 rate and they finally read the meter?? that happened to a co worker, they estimated for over a year and then one 1 bill she was hit with all the back charges.

Yes, mine was estimated for several months, the daily usages was the same but the monthly total varied due to number of days. Then there was the catchup.

awhile back I did a full test of my meter, found the instructions in a GE Meter manual for my style meter...did the test three independent times, every time the results were the same, the meter was slightly faster than the normal operational status,,,by 21%.
Damn...WAPA yelled at me and said how dare I remove the meter for testing...told them it wasn't necessary to remove to test...they came the very next day and pulled the meter.
Installed a nice new meter...going to test that one in a couple of days...all meters can be adjusted to record data, mechanical or electronic digital to what ever speed established by the tester, just saying!
I also asked for a certificate of compliance for any measuring device that consumers are being charged for; like fuel pumps, store scales, measuring tapes, etc....which must have a form of known compliance to an actual setting....division of weights and measures is a department of the VI government...they told me that WAPA is exempt from compliance since they supposedly purchase proper metering devices....Ha Ha Ha.
The government needs to step in...WAPA can be sucking 20% or more from everybody and ..... you know the rest. All I need is a small screwdriver, some time, and a little patients, and I could probably get my meter to be 20%, 40% or more slow....who would ...know! Personal discount! Now who's laughing. Only saying.

if it is an old style meter, then yes it's easy to slow it down, keeps turning, but at a slower rate No one would ever know, except that you need to make sure they security seals is intact. In fact you can buy them online, as I just checked. I never did this, but I know of someone who did and it was relatively easy for them.

awhile back I did a full test of my meter, found the instructions in a GE Meter manual for my style meter...did the test three independent times, every time the results were the same, the meter was slightly faster than the normal operational status,,,by 21%.

So what did you do to test it? 100W light bulb and a stop watch?

awhile back I did a full test of my meter, found the instructions in a GE Meter manual for my style meter...did the test three independent times, every time the results were the same, the meter was slightly faster than the normal operational status,,,by 21%.
Damn...WAPA yelled at me and said how dare I remove the meter for testing...told them it wasn't necessary to remove to test...they came the very next day and pulled the meter.
Installed a nice new meter...going to test that one in a couple of days...all meters can be adjusted to record data, mechanical or electronic digital to what ever speed established by the tester, just saying!
I also asked for a certificate of compliance for any measuring device that consumers are being charged for; like fuel pumps, store scales, measuring tapes, etc....which must have a form of known compliance to an actual setting....division of weights and measures is a department of the VI government...they told me that WAPA is exempt from compliance since they supposedly purchase proper metering devices....Ha Ha Ha.
The government needs to step in...WAPA can be sucking 20% or more from everybody and ..... you know the rest. All I need is a small screwdriver, some time, and a little patients, and I could probably get my meter to be 20%, 40% or more slow....who would ...know! Personal discount! Now who's laughing. Only saying.

Wanna come over and test mine? 😀 I'll pay in beer, cash, both? I just can't wrap my brain around numbers - I had a guy that kinda came with the house for general maintenance but he was full of S and once charged me to fill my generator with gas. He gan.

I had a guy that kinda came with the house for general maintenance but he was full of S and once charged me to fill my generator with gas.

I hope it wasn't a Diesel generator.

Whatever the meter accuracy it likely didn't change all of a sudden to result in your significant supposed utilization change. Have you verified whether it's a smart digital meter or older analog meter yet? WAPA certainly can't take a reading from and old meter without sending out a meter reader. Have you compared the reading on your last statement with the current meter reading to see how close they are? If your actual consumption hasn't changed much then it's probably just estimated readings catching up.

I used a stop watch, a 230volt 10,000watt calrod certified heating element (stove burner).
every meter has a power factor written on the data section of the face of the meter.
cut and paste following:

http://ep.yimg.com

click here for direct access to web test sheet/ca/I/yhst-97927213475128_2193_3528885

I used a stop watch, a 230volt 10,000watt calrod certified heating element (stove burner).
every meter has a power factor written on the data section of the face of the meter.
cut and paste following:

http://ep.yimg.com

click here for direct access to web test sheet/ca/I/yhst-97927213475128_2193_3528885

So if you have 240V which you should the element will draw about 10,888 watts which may account for your meter spinning faster.

For what it is worth earlier this year I felt I was getting screwed over. by WAPA. Our monthly usage at our closed up condo doubled from previous year & bills were always estimated. A friend double ck'd condo to make sure we had turned off everything & turned down the setting on fridge.

I then ound out from WAPA our old meter had been replaced by a smart meter but WAPA had no way of remotely reading it. Hey you cannot make this crap up!! So they sent a person out to the condo to read meter & insisted my previous billing was correct. I did not believe them for 1 second--liar liar pants on fire!! However being off island I was not gonna win this battle & resigned myself to paying the monthly bill that kept usage at 2 kWH a day vs old meter usage of 1 KWH a day.

Surprise surprise after receiving this months billing, it has a $$ credit or a 60 KWH credit which is an entire months usage credit.. I also found out friends who had smart meter also had a months credit also of almost $600,

I can only assume they WAPA was big time wrong this past summer when they insisted my montly usage was correct. My usage is not costing me big bucks but it's the principle of the whole thing.
.

That's why it's good to complain and document your concerns to the Public Services Commission when you have issues.
They're the only one that can hold WAPA's feet to the fire and enforce change.

It was reported recently in the news that WAPA only had two days of cash on hand. And we've all heard that they can't afford to pay Transfigura Energy the $25 million they owe for fuel oil.

So, it should be no surprise that WAPA is trying to harvest as much money from the ratepayers by any means possible.

I'm a net metering customer and they are always trying to screw me one way or the other.

Just wait until reliable and cost effective battery storage comes on line in the next few years and more rate payers leave the grid.

Gather your evidence and lodge a complaint to the PSC as others are doing. The only way to effect change is for a massive number of ratepayers to complain to the PSC.

Have you looked at the Tesla Power pack? Still a little bit expensive at this point and seems to be improving every 6 months.