PPL officials said changes have been made to prevent glitches like the one that undercharged Olyphant by $360,000 over a year and a half.
Last week, borough officials announced that PPL Energy Plus hadn't charged the borough for all the electricity it had used, stemming from a problem during the installation of a transformer in August 2011.
There are two meters that read the electricity use for the entire borough, with three transformers in each. During the installation of one of those transformers, a glitch occurred, which "caused the meter to under-read what was coming through the substation," PPL spokesman Joe Nixon explained.
The new transformer was installed by a borough-hired subcontractor with PPL Electric Utilities oversight, Mr. Nixon said. The problem was identified in the fall and corrected in January. Since then, PPL Electric Utilities has made changes to prevent future problems.
"New diagnostic test equipment is being deployed to test lines at these substations," he said. "The previous device that was used did not indicate whether or not the line was carrying normal electric load."
PPL EnergyPlus is a separate company from PPL Electric Utilities; both are subsidiaries of PPL Corp. PPL Electric Utilities handles the meters while PPL EnergyPlus handles the billing and sells the electricity.
Mr. Nixon said while there are "occasionally meter issues" in PPL's service area, he was not aware of "anything specific to exactly this situation that's occurred in Olyphant."
PPL Electric Utilities saw a dip in electricity use in the borough in 2011, but borough officials attributed the change to a mild winter. A borough audit in 2012 identified the discrepancy, Mr. Nixon said, and steps were taken to correct it and determine the cost.
Meanwhile, C.J. Mustacchio, the borough manager and solicitor, said the process to determine how much the borough will repay and when those payments will be made is still in the works.
He said it was unclear how PPL EnergyPlus determined the amount owed. While there are six transformers among the two borough meters, they don't always measure equitably.
"That doesn't mean it's a sixth of the power," Mr. Mustacchio said. "It doesn't have to be equal at any given time."
"That's one of the questions we're asking," he added.
Contact the writer: rbrown@timesshamrock.com, @rbrownTT on Twitter