Alabama Power

I know a lot of people are questioning the bills for the previous month, but has anyone noticed anything questionably shady about their bills?

Like, the bill last month was a 40% usage jump from the previous highest bill I've ever had. Mostly my highest bills are in the summer months, but this one blows them all out of the water. This might be explained by heating usage normally but I literally heat my home only with the fireplace, the furnace has been inoperable for over a decade. All I get from AL Power questioning the bill has been the same canned responses about "winter weather" causing an increase in usage. The whole thing just smells funny to me.

EDIT: after weeks of gaslighting we finally got an hvac contractor out and our unit was super old and had a leak so our unit wasn’t working properly. Our new unit has been running for a day and our max bill for summer should be around $180.

We all know it’s a scam, our electric bill here is so much higher than it ever was in Texas, New York, or Connecticut. However my bill this month went up 36% from this month last year?! Which seems insane. For a 2 bed 2 bath apartment 1094 sq ft it was $239. So I wanted to see if this is on par with what others are seeing.

For context, we have to use almost no heat in the winter, our unit is embedded into a building with other units so the insulation isn’t terrible, but it’s not the best either. We keep AC at 74 during the day and turn it down to 70 overnight to sleep.

*** Adding the detail that last year our July/august bills were 180-185 range. Has anyone else seen a big jump from last year or does this seem to indicate a red flag?

JUst wanted to share the letter I received from Alabama Power for one of my rental properties. I stated in a previous comment that upon inspection by a "licensed electrical contractor" I was told there was nothing wrong with my meter socket! It was a fabrication by someone at Alabama Power for reasons too lengthy to go into. But, I will go out on a limb here and say it might have been some comments about Alabama Power I made on FB. If you make them look bad, better watch out. The creative ways these over paid executives have come up with to put the screws to "we the people" are dirty dirty dirty.

A tree fell on a line today around 930AM. Have received 8 texts with 6 different times when it would be fixed. It's 8PM now and still nothing. No one is even at the site! This is the 3rd time in a year we've had to throw out refrigerator stuff bc they won't get off their lazy ass. And I know they don't care bc who else are we going to get our power from??? AND I had to watch Alabama beat Georgia on my phone instead of my 60" !! That might be the worst part!!!

With many folks getting higher power bills from Alabama Power, I wanted to share our experience with their flat-rate tariff. We were on a flat-rate bill for 8+ years and the rate was reasonable. Our historical usage was similar from year to year. In December, our bill included the new flat-rate charge for 2024 - it went up by 30%, roughly $75/mo even though our usage was flat and declining a bit. Remember that with flat-rate billing, if you overpay you don't get any of that money back!

We called Alabama Power and they insisted the new flat-rate amount was computed based on our estimated future usage. We switched back to the normal tariff, and the very next month (January) they offered us a new flat-rate amount that was $20 less than what we were paying throughout 2023.

I can only assume they prey on customers not noticing (or caring) when their flat-rate jumps, and they pocket the extra profit. If you're on flat-rate billing do some quick math to see if the rate is reasonable for your actual yearly usage.

Just checking to see if anyone has any helpful advice on how to deal with Alabama Power on a solution to my ridiculous bill. Got a bill for $571 which is insane and way larger than anything I’ve ever received. The kw/hr usage was nearly exactly the same as what we used one year ago, but the bill was $130 higher. Further, the bill one year ago was $120 higher than the bill from the previous year, and consistent kw/hr usage. I know they have had rate increases and customer service tells me the average increase is $6.80. Obviously I am way above that and customer service is incapable of understanding my point….they just keep repeating the $6.80 line. They sent a tech out to check the meter and he said it was working fine. He even allowed me to shut off certain appliances and things in the house to check the wattage usage and said everything we checked looked normal individually but something was causing the meter to “run high”. So no solution there.

As per the house, we have brand new windows with curtains in sunny rooms, have insulated our attic, LED lights throughout, have hvac maintenance biannually, and keep the smart thermostat at 75° (which I’d prefer lower). It may be important to note that our hvac is 20 years old that goes to about 3200 sq ft but running fine according to the hvac tech.

Apologies for the length, but hoping someone can help either advise on what I can do to dispute Alabama power or maybe explain what may be causing so much energy use. I have 2 refrigerators and a deep freezer and run a couple of box fans to help keep cool.

Thanks I’m advance.

I used less kwh for the month than I did last year, same month, and my power bill is 130 dollars more this year. I don't get it. They had to pay out a pittance last year for overcharging, but this years overcharging is insane. There is no way in hell this year's power should be 130 dollars more for less power. How do they keep getting away with it?

Just checking to see if anyone has any helpful advice on how to deal with Alabama Power on a solution to my ridiculous bill. Got a bill for $571 which is insane and way larger than anything I’ve ever received. The kw/hr usage was nearly exactly the same as what we used one year ago, but the bill was $130 higher. Further, the bill one year ago was $120 higher than the bill from the previous year, and consistent kw/hr usage. I know they have had rate increases and customer service tells me the average increase is $6.80. Obviously I am way above that and customer service is incapable of understanding my point….they just keep repeating the $6.80 line. They sent a tech out to check the meter and he said it was working fine. He even allowed me to shut off certain appliances and things in the house to check the wattage usage and said everything we checked looked normal individually but something was causing the meter to “run high”. So no solution there.

As per the house, we have brand new windows with curtains in sunny rooms, have insulated our attic, LED lights throughout, have hvac maintenance biannually, and keep the smart thermostat at 75° (which I’d prefer lower). It may be important to note that our hvac is 20 years old that goes to about 3200 sq ft but running fine according to the hvac tech.

Apologies for the length, but hoping someone can help either advise on what I can do to dispute Alabama power or maybe explain what may be causing so much energy use. I have 2 refrigerators and a deep freezer and run a couple of box fans to help keep cool.

Thanks I’m advance.

Alabama Power offers a discounted kWh price between the hours of 9pm-5am for customers who submit documentation and meet eligibility with their at home charging station. Has anyone done this and did you have a noticeable difference in your electricity bill?

Alabama Power has been in the national and local news media several times over the past couple of weeks for various reasons and none of them were good.

While a petition may not do much I still want to share it.

Their three rate increases in one year's time is dramatically affecting many people's bills.

If you're not one of them, congrats, if you are, please consider calling the Public Utilities Commission and signing the petition.

Feel free to share this info on other platforms.

Here is contact info for the Public Utilities Commission who is supposed to regulate AL Power:

PO Box 304260 • Montgomery, AL 36130 ‌
100 N Union St, RSA Union •  Montgomery, AL 36104 • 334-242-5218
Consumer Services Complaints 1-800-392-8050

Just received a bill from Alabama Power for $0. Has anyone else had this happen to them recently? I know sometimes BWW will sometimes give you a credit or bill $0 after actually reading your meter, but haven’t had this happen with my Alabama Power bill before.

My mom has been in Florida visiting me for the past couple of months and her electric bill is $50-$100 more a month with absolutely no one in the house. Mostly, everything is unplugged except newer energy efficient appliances.

It’s beyond me why folks don’t get out and vote their interests in Alabama. Power deregulation, medical and dental benefits, education…must I go on.

We got a notice on Friday that the power on our street will be off all day today, probably until 4pm. We rent an older house without central air, so we have window units. To guard against possible surges, we turned them all off before leaving for work today. It's going to get sweltering in that house in no time, and it's going to probably take at least 2 days to get it cooled off again.

Don't you think that if line maintenance needs to be done, it should be done in a cooler month like March or April instead of AUGUST, when it's in the nineties???