The comprehensive campaign to address issues with residential water, electricity, and gas metering and billing has progressed steadily, yielding significant interim results. The effort focuses on resolving key public concerns regarding measurement inaccuracies and billing grievances. To date, the initiative has facilitated 280 cases of fee reductions and refunds, resulting in the return of improper charges and waived fees totaling approximately 84.2148 million yuan. Authorities have also filed and investigated 500 cases related to metering and pricing irregularities in the utilities sector. This has led to the effective resolution of numerous long-standing, complex issues and the proper handling of various critical public welfare matters that were urgently needed by residents.
In the course of this work, provincial market regulatory authorities have actively guided utility companies to establish data-sharing channels with civil affairs departments. This collaboration has transformed the process for low-income households to receive preferential rates from an "application-based" system to an "automatic benefit" model. For instance, the provincial power grid has received data for 854,000 low-income households from the Civil Affairs Department. By 2025, it is projected that special groups will receive electricity bill reductions equivalent to 83.6156 million kilowatt-hours, translating to waived fees exceeding 38.09 million yuan, thereby ensuring policy benefits accurately reach those in need.
Regarding the promotion of "one household, one meter" upgrades, market regulators are focusing on developing a national pilot "zero sub-metering" demonstration zone in a new area. This project has already completed power supply upgrades for 18,000 households across 18 resettlement sites and 15 commercial-residential complexes, fundamentally eliminating issues related to sub-metering markups and measurement discrepancies. Simultaneously, upgrades are advancing in a bonded area, transitioning from a "one park, one meter" to a "one enterprise, one meter" system. This involves 61 metering devices for 29 enterprises, with an anticipated average reduction in electricity costs of over 20% post-upgrade.
Furthermore, efforts have led to water supply companies uniformly taking over operations in 12 townships of a county, achieving full "one household, one meter" coverage for more than 42,000 rural households. These households now benefit from strictly enforced government-guided pricing, ensuring transparent and reliable water access for rural residents.
Moving forward, provincial market regulatory departments will concentrate on a series of persistent issues surrounding metering, billing, verification, and market order. Measures will be implemented across four key areas: ensuring the systematic replacement and management of utility meters to prevent new problems, deepening the closed-loop verification of leads, enhancing technical support for quality and efficiency improvements, and rigorously investigating pricing violations for precise and long-term effectiveness. The objective is to construct a robust protective framework for utility metering and billing oversight, effectively safeguarding consumer rights and interests.
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