IURC to meet with Duke Wednesday to discuss Greencastle billing issue, smart meter rollout

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) Monday announced it will hold a public meeting with the president and other representatives of Duke Energy Indiana at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 19 in Room 222 of the PNC Center, 101 W. Washington St., Indianapolis.

Duke has been invited to brief the Commission as well as the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor on its deployment of smart meters in Indiana. In the third quarter of 2016, Duke began a program of replacing mechanical meters with smart meters, which operate digitally and enable the automated transfer of information between the meter and the utility.

During the meeting, Duke also will discuss the lessons learned with respect to billing issues recently occurring in the Greencastle and Terre Haute areas. Terre Haute was the first area where the new smart meters were deployed late last year.

The meeting will be open to the public and will be live streamed on the commission's website at www.in.gov/iurc/2624.htm.

This meeting will focus on Duke's deployment of the smart meters throughout its service territory and the billing issues. It will not cover the issue of the ability for consumers to opt out of getting a new smart meter. The opt-out option will be discussed in a separate docketed proceeding.

The IURC is a fact-finding body that hears evidence in cases filed before it and makes decisions based on the evidence presented in those cases. An advocate of neither the public nor the utilities, the commission is required by state statute to make decisions that balance the interests of all parties to ensure the utilities provide safe and reliable service at just and reasonable rates.