Updated with PN reation.
Consumers will start receiving revised utility bills to make up for overcharging due to an “anomaly” in the law.
Energy Minister Miriam Dalli announced on Thursday that the "adjustment" will be backdated to the beginning of the year.
On average, 80% of families will receive an adjustment of between €0 to €8, with the figure varying depending on their consumption patterns, she said.
Although the way bills are calculated will not change in the future, consumers who have not benefited from all the cheapest units in a given billing period will start receiving a refund on the following bill.
The legal notice governing the changes will be published on October 10.
A 2021 study by the Auditor General estimated that consumers are facing “extra charges” totalling €6.5 million on their water and electricity bills.
Dalli insisted that ARMS always correctly applied the 2009 law containing the “anomalies”.
Asked if consumers will be refunded for overbilling in past years, Dalli again insisted ARMS had always issued bills in accordance with the 2009 law, passed by a Nationalist government.
She said the current government needed to completely overhaul the law to address the problem.
A court in July ruled that ARMS breached the law when calculating bills and must refund two consumers the money they overpaid.
ARMS has appealed the ruling.
How was ARMS billing customers?
ARMS Ltd uses a staggered system to bill consumers. The first 2,000 units of electricity are charged at one rate and further consumption at higher rates.
Thus, for every kWh of the first 2,000kWh consumed in a year, residents should be charged 10.47c and then pay 12.98c for every kWh for the next 4,000kWh, 16.07c per unit on the next 4,000kWh, and so on.
However, ARMS would split up this allocation pro-rata according to the number of bills a consumer receives in the same year.
This means that if a residence is billed every two months, the first 2,000 units were split between six bills, amounting to an allocation of 333 units per bill at 10.47c per unit.
If a residence consumed fewer than 333 units in a two-month billing period, the remaining units at the cheaper rate were not brought forward to the subsequent bills. The allocation was lost and could not be used in the subsequent months, with the same method being applied to the higher bands.
From now on, consumers will now start receiving an "adjustment" on any ‘lost’ units, which will be reflected in the next bill.
Nationalist Party reacts
The Nationalist Party subsequently claimed victory saying it had been vindicated over its stand on overbilling but saying it is disappointed that consumers will not be compensated for past bills.
Reacting to minister Dalli's statement, the PN urged the public to join the court action it announced against the government.
"Minister Miriam Dalli confirmed what the Nationalist Party has been saying for ages about the system of electricity and water bills robbing people," the PN said, adding that a court ruling last July decreed that the billing system used since 2014 was not in line with the law.
"The only remedy that people have is to go to court."