There are seven ways of calculating your bill.
Your bill will be based on one of the seven scenarios described below. Your Electricity bill could come to you as an Actual, an Estimated, a Reconciled, Part Actual/Part Estimated, Over Estimated, Corrected and finally one that shows DERS estimating your distribution charges on behalf of your distributor, ATCO Electric. These are all the possible billing options, however you'll only receive one of them in a monthly period. We want to ensure that you only ever pay for the energy you consume.
Following are examples of these seven bills. Click on the examples you would like to learn more about.
Your bill is based on actual consumption whenever meter readings are available that coincide with the "FROM" and "TO" date of your billing period.
Your bill is based on estimated consumption when a meter reading is not available for any part of your billing period.
This occurs when your bill is based on an actual meter reading following a bill, or bills, based on estimated consumption. Both the Retail and Distribution portion of the bill reflect the actual meter reading received. The sum of the Retail consumption on this bill and the Retail consumption on your bill(s) since your last meter reading will be equal to the sum of the Distribution consumption on this bill and the Distribution consumption on your bill(s) since your last meter reading.
If a meter reading is available for part of your billing period, your bill will be based on actual consumption to the date of the meter reading and estimated consumption from that date to the "TO" date of your billing period.
This occurs when a month's estimated consumption is higher than actual consumption. Once a meter reading is completed an adjustment is made on your bill to ensure you only ever pay for the amount you consume.
If your previous meter reading was estimated and the actual meter reading is lower than the previous estimate, you will see a full cancellation of the previously estimated charges on your bill.
There may be occasions when the Electricity Distributor does not provide us with the distribution charges when it is time to produce your bill. In order to smooth your monthly billing charges and avoid unnecessarily fluctuating energy bills, we provide an estimated distribution charge on your bill. This will be noted as "DERS Estimated Charges" on your bill. This charge will be reversed once distribution charges for the billing period are received from the Electricity Distributor.
