SDG&E says 140 homes have leftover EV meters
La Jolla Homeowner Battles SDG&E Over Mystery Second Meter
If you think your SDG&E bill is confusing, imagine discovering a whole extra meter on your house that you never asked for.
That is exactly what happened to Manoj Aggarwal, a La Jolla homeowner who says he has been overcharged for three years thanks to a leftover electric meter from a defunct SDG&E electric vehicle charging program that ended back in 2014. The program ran between 2012 and 2014, installing dedicated second meters so EV owners could track charging costs separately. The program ended. The meters did not go anywhere.
Aggarwal says the dual-meter setup meant he was essentially being double-billed, with one meter covering his entire home and another covering the EV charger plus additional parts of the house. SDG&E sees it differently. Communications manager Anthony Wagner said the two meters work in tandem, with one subtracting from the other, and insists the billing was technically accurate. He called it a communication issue rather than an overcharge.
Here is where it gets interesting. Aggarwal says he spent three years trying to get answers from SDG&E with no luck. One call to ABC 10News changed everything. Within a day, SDG&E called him back. Within two days, they were at his house resolving the issue and putting him on the correct EV rate plan.
Aggarwal is not alone. SDG&E confirmed that roughly 140 customers still have these legacy dual-meter setups from the old program. Whether those homeowners are aware of the extra hardware on their properties is another question entirely. SDG&E says those customers are being billed appropriately but has not announced plans to remove the unused meters.
For San Diegans already dealing with some of the highest electricity rates in the nation, averaging around 47 cents per kilowatt-hour, even the appearance of billing errors is enough to make your blood boil. SDG&E encourages anyone with questions to contact them directly.
Sources: ABC 10News | SD Union-Tribune | SDG&E | BBB