Bills for four months of domestic electricity have been sent to some 2,000 Flogas customers who were affected by a pause in billing going back to March this year.
Customers who use smart meters were notified in late July that “due to a technical issue impacting the processing of your consumption data, some bills have taken longer than expected to issue”.
A number of customers on direct debit payment schemes last saw money taken from their accounts in mid-April for electricity consumed up to March.
The company has in the last week issued four monthly bills to bring accounts up to date.
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For direct debit customers the four bill payments will be taken from customers’ bank accounts starting this week and continuing into next.
Customers were advised: “If you would like to make a payment before your delayed bill is issued to help spread the cost, you can do so using our online payment portal.
Those who need assistance were referred to the Flogas credit control team.
The company said: “As we begin to issue delayed bills, you may receive your bills outside of your usual billing schedule for a short period.”
A Flogas spokeswoman said “some of our residential electricity customers have recently received a number of backdated bills together due to a technical difficulty affecting the processing of some consumption data”.
She said the company recognised “this has caused a level of concern and upset and we sincerely apologise to affected customers for any inconvenience caused”.
All affected residential customers are to receive “a €30 goodwill charter payment”, which will be automatically applied to their next bill, she said.
Customer service teams are available to assist anyone who may need support with payment arrangements,” she added.
A spokesman for ESB Networks, which operates the smart meters said: “On Friday March 6th, a planned software upgrade to one of our internal systems caused some smart meter readings to be processed incorrectly, this was not related to the integrity of the smart meters themselves, or the way they record energy use.”
ESB Networks said the issue was resolved on March 9th and the company completed the data correction process for all affected customer meter readings on March 25th.
“The recent technical issue will have resulted in a delay to billing as suppliers awaited the corrected data. However, the timing and frequency of upcoming bills will be determined solely by individual suppliers and their own billing cycles,” the spokesman added.
News of the issue comes as the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) revealed more than 322,000 domestic electricity customers were in arrears in April of this year. The figure amounts to 14 per cent of all domestic electricity customers.
The industry regulator said 186,380 households, or 8 per cent, were in arrears for more than 90 days.
