PENNSYLVANIA — Many Pennsylvania homeowners were shocked by their abnormally high electric bills last month. Now, the state’s Public Utility Commission (PUC) has announced that it is launching an investigation into what went wrong.

PPL Electric Utilities customers have been reporting excessively high electric bills since January, some paying double or even triple the amount they had paid in just the previous month.

Rep. Joe Adams, who represents Wayne and Pike counties in the state legislature, said that his office has been hearing from “quite a few” constituents with concerns about their bills.

“[PPL] estimated bills in December incorrectly, and then when they got real kW numbers in January, they piled on what was missed in December,” Adams said. “It’s certainly caused quite a bit of strife for the residents.”

In a letter to PUC chair Gladys Brown Dutrieuille, U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, who represents much of the Northeast PA region, said that one of his constituents was billed more than $400 in January, despite only paying $195 the previous month, an increase of over 100 percent. Another constituent, “who did nothing substantially different from a year ago,” received a $584 bill and was informed on the PPL bill that the household’s electricity usage had increased by 25 percent since January 2022.

“Many ratepayers are on a fixed income, and they are understandably worried about being able to pay their mortgages or other due bills along with their highly unusual January PPL bill,” Cartwright wrote.

At first too overwhelmed with calls from distressed customers to address them all effectively, PPL eventually released a statement, via the company’s president, apologizing for the glitch and for the lack of communication. “We know that delivering reliable electricity—keeping the lights on for you—must be matched by exceptional customer service,” the statement read. “In recent weeks, we’ve fallen short of this standard in both our billing and responsiveness to customers.”

President Steph Raymond said that PPL had resolved the technical issue that resulted in the exorbitant bills, and that customers affected by this glitch have either already received a corrected bill with actual usage or an adjustment on their next monthly bill.

The utility will not shut off power to residential and small-business customers for non-payment through March 31, the letter said, and will also waive all late fees in January and February. To reduce call wait-times, PPL has also brought on more customer service agents.

Just hours after this statement was released, the PUC announced that its independent bureau of investigation and enforcement has initiated a “comprehensive investigation” into what went wrong.

Technical mistakes aside, electric prices have increased sharply in the past two years. According to PPL’s internal data, its default rate for electricity this year is roughly 54 percent higher than in 2021.

National sources point to multiple factors to explain the upward trend; top of the list is the high cost of natural gas, which generates about 40 percent of the country’s energy supply. Extreme temperatures are another cause—excessive heat and cold require more air conditioning and heating.

As Wayne County residents, many of whom are seasonal employees, fight to stay warm inside their homes this winter, unaffordable electric bills are an additional, unwelcome strain.

“It’s been a really tough time for residents with grocery bills, inflation, fuel costs, utility costs and everything going up significantly right before a major cold front comes through,” Adams said. “This time of year, because of the nature of our area, a lot of employment [is] around construction, around the resort operations, restaurants, tourism and leisure. There’s not a lot of extra money in people’s pockets to be able to pay those bills.”

PPL has encouraged customers who are struggling to pay their energy bills to visit www.pplelectric.com or call 800/DIAL-PPL to set up a structured payment plan. Additionally, the PUC has told consumers who don’t believe that PPL has addressed their issues, or responded appropriately to the situation, to call the commission’s bureau of consumer services at 800/692-7380. Consumers who are unable to reach PPL agents or do not receive a response from PPL should also contact the bureau to report those issues, the commission said.