Dallas-based Oncor will ask state regulators Thursday to develop a program that independently tests the accuracy of its smart meters after customers complained to the utility and to state legislators about high bills after getting the new meters.

State Sen. Troy Fraser, chairman of the Senate Business and Commerce Committee, urged in a letter to the Public Utility Commission that the regulator halt the installation of smart meters to study their accuracy. Fraser said in the letter that he's received hundreds of complaints about how the meters were reading power usage, especially from people in the Temple-Killeen area.

Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, asked the PUC to suspend the $2.21 monthly fee that transmission utilities such as Oncor charge monthly for the smart meters until the independent testing is conducted.

"It has come to my attention that there have been other transmission and distribution utilities in other parts of the state that are having difficulties with smart meters accurately reading customers' energy usage," Fraser wrote.

Oncor proposed in a letter to the PUC on Tuesday that the utility start a Smart Meter Verification Plan.

It will offer free verification to customers in the Killeen area if they contact Oncor by March 12 and will offer free in-home monitors to 100 customers in the area.

The utility wants a side-by-side comparison of old and new meters in homes of customers who volunteer. The project will start in the Killeen area to help persuade customers that the meters work correctly.

Oncor, which is majority-owned by Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, has installed nearly 700,000 smart meters in its territory of about 3.4 million homes and businesses.

Record low temperatures over December and January increased the amount of power North Texans used, and utility officials have said that's what's behind higher bills.

Oncor officials say that homes with older meters may have not been charged for all the power they used because the older technology can underestimate usage; the smart meter's precision would make bills appear higher because all the power would be counted, the company has said.