With technology now existing to automate meter reading parks can charge every guest for exactly what they used. At Wild Energy we like to refer to this as Fair for All instead of being free and unregulated. With that in mind I wanted to hear from campers about what they thought about billing for electricity.

I posed this question to a group of RVers; Would you rather be billed for the exact electricity you used, or have an average baked into the rate? There were a number of different viewpoints in the responses I received. Here are some of the topics brought up from the travelers I talked to.

 Accuracy with billing. Travelers were concerned the bill they received was accurate.

∙ Full time traveler Amy said, “We are seasonals and stay at a metered site, but sometimes it seems off. I started taking a picture of the meter.”  Wild Energy offers a Guest Portal to provide complete transparency to utility readings.

Paying for other campers’ consumption. Are travelers paying more than their fair share?

∙ Sharon from Michigan said, “We are supposedly charged for what we use but it always seems high. Meanwhile, short-term visiting campers use disco lights and running the A/C with the door open. I’m not thrilled to pay for their amenities….”

∙ Yvonne stated, “I don’t think it’s fair for my small rig to be charged the same as a huge rig with four AC units.”

Everyone that I connected with thought it was appropriate, and normal, to bill long-term guests for their electricity, but most were unaware that there is now technology that allows parks to easily bill everyone for their electricity regardless of length of stay. Automating electric metering solves all of the issues brought up by campers. Wild Energy has a guest portal that allows the campers to login and see their exact usage at any point. That transparency eliminates concerns of billing accuracy. Automating the process also makes it feasible to charge every guest for their exact usage since no one has to go out to read the meter. That means the little guy no longer needs to subsidize the big rig with four AC units.

Automating electric meter reading also protects the financial success of the park from an owner’s perspective. If you are billing every guest for what they use, there is no longer the possibility of underestimating your electrical bills and ending up losing money from increased consumption.

The outdoor travel industry is very much a large family. At Wild Energy we are proud to be working with parks across the country to help make electrical billing fair for all, both the consumer and the park.

By Ryan Nelson