Barb MacKinnon of Nasonworth, near Fredericton, said her December bill was "far too high to be accurate."

"The power usage at my house has been consistent over many years and nothing changed here in those months," said MacKinnon.

What these customers seem to have in common, according to Johnson, is the recent installation of smart meters.

"I just wonder if there's a glitch in the system," she said.

Clark is confident smart meters are not to blame.

"These are all federally regulated. They have to be reviewed by Measurement Canada before they're installed. … We actually audit and review them when we install them, and every six years they have to be audited again."

However, in some cases, initial investigations have not been able to explain customer complaints, she acknowledged.

"If it is something that we also think is very strange and not in the norm of what we're seeing with our other customers, we will dispatch resources to check the meter and we've done that on on a number of occasions," Clark said.

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CBC has requested further information about the number of cases in question and what if any problems have been discovered.

If a customer wants a meter inspection that N.B. Power doesn't deem necessary, the fee is $65.

The opposition Progressive Conservatives are calling for an independent audit of smart meters and the data they collect.

"There needs to be a thorough examination of what's going on," Johnson said. "We need to do a really good deep dive into what is causing these spikes."

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She would like the legislature's public accounts committee to look into the issue.

That would be up to the provincial government, Clark said, while noting the Crown corporation does its own audits on a regular basis.

About half of all N.B. Power customers now have smart meters. They can view their consumption on the utility's website and get customer support to understand what may be going on, she said.

They can also get notifications when consumption starts to increase, which might allow them to make adjustments to avoid a higher bill, she said.

Around 4,900 residents in the New Brunswick city of Edmundston and the surrounding area were without electricity Tuesday, as the region deal with severe cold. 

The outage is impacting N.B. Power customers, as well as clients of Energy Edmundston, the city's homegrown energy department. 

"We don't know what happened, and N.B. Power doesn't know, either," said Jacques Doiron, the city's fire chief and emergency measures organization co-ordinator. "We don't know when it's going to come back." 

Doiron said the problem is not with the city itself, "but we are affected by [NB Power's] line." 

CBC News requested an interview with N.B. Power. Spokesperson Dominique Couture in an email said no one was available, and directed inquiries about when customers would have their power restored to its website. 

As of 1 p.m. AT, most of those affected were estimated to be restored by mid-afternoon. 

Jacques Doiron, Edmundston's fire chief and emergency measures organization co-ordinator, said the city's utility isn't sure what caused the power outage. (CBC News)

Doiron says the power went out around 7:20 a.m. Tuesday morning. The outage is affecting residents of Edmundston, Lac Baker, Saint-François de Madawaska, Saint-Basile and St-Joseph-De-Madawaska. 

Environment Canada listed a wind chill of –33 degrees in Edmundston Tuesday morning, climbing to –24 in the afternoon before dipping down to –36 overnight. 

"Because the temperatures are really cold, we had to open up a warming centre for people to come and warm up," said Doiron.  

The city-owned Pavillon sportif d'Edmundston, next to the University of Moncton's Edmundston campus, has been opened to allow those without electricity to warm up and charge their devices. 

Doiron said the longer the outage goes on, the worse things will get in this cold weather. 

"Pipes freezing, that is an issue," said Doiron, but warns that secondary heating systems such as barbecues or generators be kept outside for safety reasons. 

"People can get very sick or die," said Doiron. 

He asked those without power to turn off their breakers for power-hungry systems like baseboard heaters and large appliances, to ensure that when power is restored it can be rebooted with a lightened load and not risk it going out again immediately. Once the power is back, he said, people can again turn on their breakers. 

"That's going to help us re-establish electricity in our region," said Doiron.

NB Power customers who do not want a smart meter installed on their home could be facing a stiff fee for that decision, but so far the utility is not saying how much it might be.  

"It will be based on the principles of cost causation, but we have not gotten into the detail of what that fee would be at this point," said NB Power Senior Vice President of Operations Lori Clark at Energy and Utilities Board hearings on Friday.

In other jurisdictions that have already adopted smart meters, customers not wanting to participate have faced hundreds of dollars in extra charges.

Thousands of pages of evidence on a number of issues, including smart meters, have been submitted for the 12-day hearing.

In British Columbia, power customers are charged a meter reading fee of $32.40 per month if they refuse a smart meter, or $20 per month if they accept a smart meter but insist its radio transmitter be turned off. That's a cost of between $240 and $388.80 per year for customers to opt out.

In Quebec, smart meters were installed beginning in 2012. Customers who refused the devices were initially charged $98 to opt out plus a meter reading fee of $17 per month. That was eventually cut by Quebec's energy board in 2014 to a $15 refusal fee and a $5 per month meter reading surcharge.

NB Power said it may be a year or more before it settles on its own fee.

"The opt out policy will be developed and implemented as part of the roll out.  It will be one of the last things we do," said Clark.

Customers need to be on board

NB Power is in front of the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board seeking permission to spend $122.7 million to install 350,000 smart meters province wide.  

Smart meter opponent Roger Richard, right, leads a group worried about human health problems caused by long term exposure to the devices. (Robert Jones/CBC NEWS)

The meters are capable of transmitting consumption data of customers back to NB Power in real time, which the utility said will allow for a number of innovations in pricing and service.

The meters require near universal adoption by customers to maximize their financial benefit — like eliminating more than $20 million a year NB Power currently spends to read meters manually. The utility has said the switch will not succeed if too many customers opt out.

"We certainly wouldn't be looking at making an investment of this size without having the customer with us," said Clark.

On Thursday, Kent County resident Daniel LeBlanc, who along with Roger Richard, is opposing the introduction of smart meters for health reasons, predicted a cool reception for the technology in many parts of the province.

NB Power acknowledged it has not measured public opinion on adopting smart meters but is confident it can convince customers it is a good idea for them and the utility.

"People don't understand what the smart meter is," said Clark. "We need to educate our customers first to allow them to make an informed decision so that will be part of the roll out plan."

Clark noted that smart meters, helped by stiff opting out penalties, were eventually accepted by 98 per cent of customers in British Columbia and by 97.4 per cent of customers in Quebec.

"We will check and adjust along the way if there are issues with customer uptake," said Clark.

"This is very similar to what has been done in other jurisdictions and they haven't had those challenges."