Late Payment Fee
On September 1st of this year, French Broad Electric will implement a new late payment fee.  The late payment fee will be equivalent to 1.5% of the total past due amount, or a minimum of $2.50, whichever is greater.  This fee will be calculated on a monthly basis and will be assessed to any customer account which has a past due balance on the due date. 

Most utility companies have had these fees in place for years, but French Broad Electric has tried to absorb these costs internally; however, with the economic environment being what it is today, we can no longer do so. 

French Broad Electric is billed for products we purchase, such as wire, poles and transformers and our suppliers expect us to pay them within a given time frame or they charge a late fee.  Our contactors bill us on a weekly basis for their services and they expect to be paid promptly.  Progress Energy, who sells French Broad Electric the electricity we distribute to our customers, gives us ten days to pay them in full and unfortunately, we have to make similar arrangements to collect the money due to us in a timely manner so that we can pay our bills on time. 

Information on this policy was sent to you in your June billing statement.  Please understand that any amount past due as of September 1st is subject to this late payment fee.  Please make every effort to catch up delinquent bills so that you can avoid paying these fees. 

Smart Meters
French Broad Electric is continuing to install smart meters on our customer accounts.  To date, we have installed approximately 21,000 smart meters.  This year, we have been installing around one thousand meters each month throughout our service territory and we are hopeful that we can maintain this deployment schedule. 

The new meters will allow French Broad Electric to read meters remotely and collect more information about each account.  These meters, hourly data is stored on our computer system and each customer will be able to see their usage patterns so they can better understand when they use electricity.  This information will hopefully encourage our customers to be more energy efficient and thus gain a better understanding of how much electricity they use on a daily basis. 

Thank You,

Jeff Loven
jeff.loven@frenchbroademc.com


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