An energy bill that reaches or exceeds twice the average billing for the same period will have to be suspended and verified within 10 days. This is the mechanism that the Energy Regulatory Authority proposes to protect consumers from unusual bills and overbilling.
The measure is included in the draft general conditions of the universal supply contract, for which the ERE has opened the consultation procedure. In parallel, a regulation has been proposed on the information that energy bills should contain, reports skyweb.al.
The idea is that an invoice significantly higher than the customer’s history should not be immediately treated as a regular payment obligation. The supplier should suspend it and carry out an expedited procedure to verify, cancel and issue a corrected invoice within the 10-day deadline.
This control is related to billings comparable to or higher than twice the monthly average for the same period. The increase in the bill serves as a signal for verification, without necessarily implying that any higher consumption is an error.
To support the control with evidence, the draft regulation requires that any anomaly in recorded consumption, compared to the customer’s history, be documented and accompanied by photographs.
Also, the bill should distinguish when consumption is determined by actual measurement and when it is calculated based on estimated or reference values. This allows the customer to understand on what data the obligation was calculated.
Another protection is related to complaints: for the disputed bill, no power interruption is foreseen until the review by the supplier is completed. If the complaint is submitted to the ERE, this protection continues until its decision. The customer remains obliged to pay the other uncontested bills.
If the verification confirms the overbilling, the supplier must cancel the invoice and issue a corrected one. Once the customer has made the payment, the overpaid amount must be offset against the invoice within the following three months.
In case of delay beyond this deadline, the project also provides for a penalty in favor of the consumer: 0.1% for each day of delay on the difference that must be corrected, which is deducted from the next invoice.
Restrictions are also proposed for billing when the meter is not working. If it is damaged or out of technical condition and the OSSH does not install a regular meter within three months of the finding, the supplier is responsible. For days without metering after this deadline, billing is set to zero.
These measures aim to catch suspicious billing before it burdens the consumer and establish financial liability when compensation is delayed. They are still in the consultation phase and have not been finally adopted. /skyweb.al