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It’s official – Duke Energy customers hit with charges during an extended billing cycle will be getting some money back. As Matt Galka tells us, the utility backtracked even though they were allowed to keep charging.

Duke Energy gave in to public and political pressure. In a statement released late Wednesday afternoon, the utility said they’ll credit all customers effected by extra billing days. More than 260,000 people were impacted.

“We understand we’ve also called some issues with customers moving into a higher tier rate, and we want to make that right,” said spokesman Sterling Ivey.

The state’s second largest utility added up to 12 days to some customer’s billing cycles. That caused charges to skyrocket in some cases. Rate payers get slapped with higher charges after they reached a certain point. The extra days that were billed moved some customers over the edge.

“It’s hot  people are using more energy, they’re running their air conditions, so we’re seeing an influx of higher bills anyway, and we added days onto their billing cycle,” said Ivey.

Duke Energy is taking all the flak for the meter move but other utilities can use the trick as well.

“It’s available to other utilities based on the same tariff provisions, and the same rule applies ot all utilities in the commissions jurisdiction, yes,” said Deputy Public Counsel Charles Rehwinkel who represents consumers in front of the Public Service Commission.

Consumer advocate Brad Ashwell says the credit was the only way to make things right.

“We’re glad to see Duke is compensating these customers who wrongly billed, it’s good news but it shouldn’t be news at all. It wouldn’t be news at all but for the fact that Duke energy charged people more than they should be charged,” said Ashwell, who works with the Florida Alliance for Consumer Protection.

Duke’s president will still go before the Public Service Commission next week to address the PSC’s concerns about the billing problems.