LPEA upgrades e-bill to ‘SmartHub’

Posted

By Indiana Reed

Special to The SUN

The electronic billing through La Plata Electric Association (LPEA) has a new look and new name. Now called SmartHub, the recently-launched program offers LPEA’s members additional services and enhanced ease of operation.

“Technology continues to improve and we want to keep up with it and offer our members the best and most secure electronic billing options,” says Tracy Graybeal, LPEA network administrator. “The new SmartHub allows members to better monitor their usage, which we hope will help them reduce their energy consumption and costs.”

In addition to facilitating bill payment, the new SmartHub home page (lpea.smarthub.coop) features a variety of options for additional information, including billing history and usage. Under “My Usage,” customers can view a graph that includes historical temperature data (which often influences electrical usage on any given date) as well as some simple analysis of use.

“By enhancing the features and ease of the electronic billing, we hope more of our members will sign up for the service,” said Dennis Svanes, LPEA CFO, noting that increased participation in electronic billing saves the cooperative and ultimately the members money. “Convenience is also a benefit of electronic billing.”

The SmartHub page can be accessed on mobile phones or tablets, and the home page offers links for downloads for both Apple and Android users. Additionally, users can select to receive network feeds from LPEA such as Twitter.

“We want to make sure that all our current members utilizing electronic billing know that the email announcing the monthly bill will come from lpea@smarthub.coop. Members can use their existing login credentials to get to the newly-designed site,” says Graybeal, stressing that a new account does not need to be established. “The site will, however, ask for a new ‘passphrase,’ which is an extra layer of security, new to this program. If you have any questions, just give us a call.”

To learn more about monitoring your electricity consumption, or to sign-up for electronic billing, visit www.lpea.coop. For further billing questions, call 247-5786.