Two Arizonans — including a customer of UniSource Energy Services in Kingman and a Phoenix resident in Arizona Public Service territory — have died from heat-related causes this year after having their power shut off for nonpayment, state regulators were told this week.
During an update on heat-related deaths linked to the Arizona Corporation Commission’s pending rule changes on utility disconnection policies on Wednesday, staffers cited the apparently heat-related death of an unnamed UniSource electric customer in Kingman on June 18.
UniSource Energy Services, or UES, is a subsidiary of Tucson-based UNS Energy Corp., along with Tucson Electric Power Co. UES serves more than 96,000 electric customers in Mohave and Santa Cruz counties.
The death in Kingman came about a month after UES turned off the customer’s power for nonpayment, according to a redacted report the utility filed with the ACC.
State-regulated electric utilities are prohibited from disconnecting customers from June 1 through Oct. 15 of each year, under emergency rules adopted by the Corporation Commission in June 2019 following the heat-related death of an APS customer in Sun City West in 2018.
Other state rules restrict utilities from turning off customers for nonpayment if they are elderly or disabled or have a verified medical device need, and require utilities to offer extended payment plans to those at risk of shutoff.
According to UES’ report to regulators on the death of the Kingman customer, the utility had shut the customer’s power off on May 13 for nonpayment of $1,885, after the customer had failed to keep up with three separate payment plans since April 2020.
The customer’s name and address and other information was redacted from the public version of the UES report, amid privacy concerns.
The customer had established service in 2010 and been disconnected for nonpayment and reconnected six times from 2011 to May 2019, when UES said it found evidence the customer had removed the company’s electric meter and replaced it with a meter stolen from another address.
The utility reached a compromise to bill the customer $620 for reconnection, including $370 for the estimated cost of power used through the bogus meter but no payment was made, and the account was closed and the arrearage referred to a collection agency.
The customer reestablished service in April 2020 but failed to keep up with three separate payment plans, prompting UES to cancel the payment arrangement and demand full payment of $1,885 in late April of this year.
After sending a disconnect notice and trying to reach the customer by phone over the subsequent two weeks, UES shut the customer’s power off on May 13.
On June 10, UES reported that a person caring for the customer had called the utility asking what it would take to restore service. The caller was told UES would accept a 25% upfront payment, with a new payment plan for the rest, but no payment was made, the utility said.
UES said that around 4 p.m. on June 18 — a day when the temperature in Kingman reached 111 degrees — an investigator with an undisclosed agency informed the utility that the customer was suffering from heat stroke and asked if the power could be turned back on so the customer could return home.
UES restored service by 5 p.m. that day, knocking on the door to inform the customer, but there was no answer, according the utility’s report.
On June 21, UES said, it was informed by an undisclosed party that the customer had died on June 18 “allegedly from a heat-related illness.” The remaining balance which had mounted to $1,984 with additional energy use since the last billing, was paid the next day.
UES said it had no previous indication that the Kingman customer had a medical condition or a necessary medical device in the home.
Dallas Dukes, vice president of customer experience, programs and pricing for UES and TEP, told the ACC that the company had no information on the Kingman customer beyond what was filed in its report.
In a response the to the Star, UniSource noted that the Kingman customer died more than five weeks after power was shut off and the high temperature in Kingman was 87 degrees on May 11, when the customer’s account was flagged for disconnection.
“We’ve consistently encouraged our customers over the past year to reach out for help if they’re having trouble paying bills because we know many people are struggling,” Dukes said in an email statement.
He said UniSource has many options to assist customers who are behind in their bills, including payment extensions, low-income discounts and referrals to community agencies that offer emergency bill payment assistance. Additional funds have been made available over the past year through federal pandemic relief efforts.
Dukes noted that UniSource has shared information on available bill assistance continually through news media outreach and interviews, disconnection notices, letters, bill inserts, social media posts and automated telephone calls.
“Bill payment assistance resources are available right now, particularly for renters and others with low household incomes,” Dukes said. “We’re ready to assist any customer who reaches out and asks for help.”
Heat death in Phoenix
In a similarly redacted report to the ACC, APS reported the heat-related death of a person in its service territory in Phoenix on May 13, three days after electric service to the address was shut off.
APS said it shut off service to an east-central Phoenix address where the victim apparently lived, but the deceased person was not a customer of record.
The utility included a medical examiner’s report that found the deceased person died of hypertensive cardiovascular disease, with “environmental heat exposure” cited as a contributing factor.
The medical examiner reported that the deceased had no known medical conditions and had “lived in a small makeshift shed on someone else’s property.”
Service to the address was shut off May 10 when the APS account had a past-due balance of about $402, APS said, detailing how the company sent the customer numerous past-due notices with bill-assistance information and left recorded phone messages warning of impending disconnection.
The account at that address had been established in March 2020 but had been chronically past due, with more than $500 in arrears by December 2020.
The account was eligible for disconnection last year but service continued under the statewide moratorium on summer disconnections, which APS had voluntarily extended through the end of 2020, the utility said.
After paying $560 toward a bill that had reached $678 by Jan. 1, the customer had been put on a payment plan in January to catch up with the $118 bill arrearage, APS said.
The customer was also subject to shutoff in March, but made a payment that dropped the arrears below $300, a threshold that halts disconnections under the Corporation Commission’s emergency rules, APS said.
The shutoff was originally scheduled for May 4 but APS held off because of an excessive heat advisory that day, the utility said.
APS said it had no prior information that a person in the household was elderly or had a medical condition.
Corporation Commission Chairwoman Lea Marquez Peterson directed the agency’s utilities staff to file all reports, with names and other sensitive information redacted, in the agency’s public docket.
