LIPA faults National Grid in bill misprint

In the latest public spat between the Long Island Power Authority and National Grid, a top LIPA executive on Friday said mistakes by the British power giant led to misprints on bills sent this month to 1,200 customers.

While no one was mischarged, June bills included incorrect figures in an explanation of power rates, said LIPA chief operating officer Michael Hervey. For example, he said, a rate of 20 cents per kilowatt hour was mistakenly listed as $39 per kilowatt hour.

"We've had several different types of problems, and what that tells me is that this is not a problem with one individual but there's some kind of systemic problem," Hervey said in an interview.

The mistake affected a relatively small percentage of LIPA's 1.1 million customers. LIPA will issue corrected billing statements, Hervey said.

National Grid spokeswoman Wendy Ladd said in an email, "National Grid is committed to producing high quality, accurate and timely bills for LIPA and its customers. We will follow through on LIPA's requests quickly to ensure LIPA and its customers get the quality service they deserve."

Hervey said National Grid is investigating the error.

LIPA's public airing of billing gripes with National Grid follows weeks of reports of customers being misclassified and overcharged, and it marks the second time in recent months LIPA has publicly laid problems at the company's feet.

With Mark Harrington