Residents press National Grid over sharp bill increases after smart-meter rollout; utility points to data ingestion errors and colder winter

National Grid representatives told the Nantucket Select Board on Wednesday that the utility has installed over 10,000 advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) devices on Nantucket and that many customer billing complaints stem from data-ingestion and billing-system integration problems rather than faulty meters.

"Across the state, we're at nearly 500,000 meters deployed. In Nantucket, we're over 10,000 meters, which represents about 69% of our residential customers," Jesse Harvey, head of AMI delivery for National Grid Massachusetts, told the board and attending residents. Harvey said installations will continue through April and resume in the fall.

Harvey acknowledged that the island saw higher energy consumption this winter — about 9% higher overall — tied to a colder winter and rate changes, and said National Grid’s analysis showed no systematic difference between AMI smart meters and legacy AMR meters. "We saw there was really no difference between AMI smart meters and the existing AMR meters," he said. "If anything, the usage skews higher for the existing meters."

But multiple residents described sharply higher bills and confusing account activity. "I had a $956 bill for November. I had a $2,000 bill for December," a resident said, noting an otherwise low-occupancy house. Another attendee, reporting on conversations with clients and neighbors, said he had seen bills rise "500%, 1000 percent, 2000%" for some households.

Harvey said the meters themselves register power the way meters always did and that National Grid’s testing finds meters "over 99.96% accurate." He described a separate back-office issue: data from some meters was not being correctly ingested into the billing system starting around September, creating a backlog that in some accounts produced estimated reads, delayed processing and manual fixes. "The meters were registering and getting that data, but you wouldn't be able to go on to the portal to see your usage because it wasn't connected to the billing system," Harvey said.

He offered concrete assistance: National Grid brought billing specialists to meet with customers after the meeting and will be available the following day from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to review accounts in person. Harvey also outlined options for customers, including payment plans and budget-billing arrangements.

Residents pressed National Grid on interval timing, third-party access to data, and opt-out costs. Harvey said interval data are collected every 15 minutes but that billing is based on register reads that span a billing cycle; interval data can show when a 15-minute segment was "estimated." He said National Grid does not share customer interval data without permission and that third-party apps such as Sense are opt-in and do not send data through National Grid's systems. The company also said the Department of Public Utilities approved a $26 monthly fee for customers who choose to remain on manual reads rather than have a smart meter installed.

The presentation prompted requests for follow-up. The board and staff asked residents with anomalous bills to bring account statements to the specialists stationed at town facilities so National Grid can correct individual errors or explain adjustments. "Come on down because we'll look and work," Harvey told residents.

The Select Board did not take any formal action about the smart-meter deployment at the meeting; the discussion ended with the utility team available for in-person help.