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Questar Gas is double checking all of its meters to ensure the equipment is sending the company the correct information about how much natural gas each customer has used.

Although the utility said Thursday it won't be done rechecking all 840,000 meters in its system until the end of the year, it is confident it already has identified the vast majority that were sending wrong information, which led to the additional billing of some customers.

"As we go through and recheck, we may find a few more meters out there that have a problem, but we don't anticipate it will be anything like the numbers that we've found so far," Questar spokesman Darren Shepherd said.

Questar started installing transponders, or transmitters, onto its meters about 10 years ago. Its goal eventually was to place a transponder on each meter so it could forgo sending individual meter readers out to each home. The transmitters radio consumption data to computers placed inside company trucks driving through neighborhoods.

In November, though, the utility started loading new software onto laptop computers inside its trucks and discovered about 500 transmitters were under-reporting natural gas use.

After Questar tried to back bill those customers for the natural gas they had used but not paid for - some customers were handed bills of $2,000 or more - the state's Public Service Commission ordered an investigation to evaluate the scope of the problem. It asked the state's Division of Public Utilities to conduct the probe.

At a scheduling conference on Thursday, division director Phil Powlick presented an outline of the proposed investigation that included timetables for gathering needed data from the company and suggested hearing dates.

Among the questions Powlick indicated the division wanted answered was how far back Questar Gas can go in collecting underpayments from its customers. "Six months or two years appear to be the options open to us," Powlick said.

Consumer advocate Roger Ball of the Utah Ratepayers Association said investigators should "have the drains opened up. We need to follow the money and find out what the financial consequences of this [problem] was for the past 10 years, wherever it may lead us."

Questar customer Chris Segura, a retired Salt Lake County employee, said he was heartened by the hearing because the state "appears to be heading in the right direction."

Three weeks ago, Segura received a bill from Questar Gas that indicated he owed them an additional $2,049 because the company-owned meter on his home had a transmitter that was sending the wrong information about how much natural gas he had been using.

Michele Beck, director of the Committee of Consumer Services that is charged with serving as the voice of consumers in utility matters that come before state regulators, said while the committee will be working with the division on the investigation it may come to different conclusions and have different policy recommendations on addressing the transponder problem.

"We like the idea of having a report [done] this summer," she said.

Under the schedule proposed by the Division of Public Utilities, public hearings on the matter will be in mid-August.