Chubu Electric retail subsidiary mistakenly overcharged customers
At least 5,009,000 customers, half of which are households, have been overpaying for more than two years.
Chubu Electric Power announced Thursday that its electricity retail subsidiary Chubu Electric Power Miraiz had mistakenly been overcharging many of its customers for more than two years.
The company said the Nagoya-based subsidiary had miscalculated the cost price that the electricity fees are based on.
At least 5,009,000 customers, half of which are households, have been overpaying. They occupy around 57% of the total number of contracts.
The value of excess payments collected totaled roughly ¥1.2 billion ($7.81 million), with the amount overcharged monthly being ¥152 per customer at most.
The money will be refunded.
Based on the change made in April 2024 to the fees paid by electricity retail firms to power distribution operators to use their transmission network, the subsidiary was supposed to set the increase in power generation costs to ¥47.4 billion over a three-year period, but it mistakenly set the cost at ¥50.1 billion.
Chubu Electric said it was not intentional.
Translated by The Japan Times