Sample report
This is the whole report, for a facility we made up so we could show you the shape of one. The business, the meter and the numbers are invented. The arithmetic, the tariff structure and the findings are exactly what we run.
Download this report as a PDF ↓
One · where the money goes
| Energy you used 310,000 kWh at 6.40¢. Your retailer sets this. It is the only layer a switch changes. | $19,840 |
| Demand charge Your monthly peak, averaged 92 kW, at $5.20 per kW. The utility sets this and it is the same whoever sells you electricity. | $5,740 |
| Delivery, per kWh Regulated, passed through untouched. | $2,914 |
| Fixed charges and sales tax Customer charge, meter charge, and 8.25% state and city tax. |
$1,156 |
| Total for the year | $29,650 |
Your all-in cost works out to 9.56¢ a kilowatt-hour. That is the number worth carrying around, and it is not the number on your contract, because your contract only covers the top layer.
Two · the peak
Your load runs flat at about 58 kW through the working day. The 92 kW peak is a spike that lasts one interval, on the mornings when the compressor, the two CNC machines and the rooftop unit all come up inside the same fifteen minutes. It happened on eleven days last year. Those eleven mornings set the demand charge for eleven whole months.
The gap between your peak and your working load is 34 kW. At $5.20 a kilowatt that gap is costing $2,120 a year, and nothing about it is electricity you actually needed. It is a starting order.
Three · findings
Bringing the compressor up twenty minutes before the machines, and the rooftop unit twenty minutes after, keeps the fifteen-minute average under about 70 kW. We are estimating conservatively: full separation would be worth closer to $2,100.
Do it this month Costs nothing
You are billed on the utility's small general service schedule. At your load factor and peak, their secondary demand schedule is cheaper for you every month of the year. It is a form, it is free, and the utility will not suggest it.
One form Utility, not your retailer
Texas exempts electricity used predominantly in manufacturing or processing. A shop like this usually clears the threshold comfortably once the machining load is measured against lighting and office. It needs a predominant-use study, which is a real piece of work, and the exemption can also be claimed back up to four years.
Needs a study Refund possible on past bills
A commercial term that runs out does not stop. It rolls to a holdover rate that can move every cycle, and on a facility this size that has cost people several thousand dollars in a single hot month. The window to bid is now, not in December.
94 days
Your 6.40¢ energy rate sits about a third of a cent above what the market was quoting for a meter like yours in the month you signed. That difference is the broker's margin, built into the rate. It is legal, it is normal, and it is invisible on your bill. We are showing it because you paid it and nobody told you.
Already spent Avoidable on the next contract
You are averaging 0.94, comfortably above the utility's 0.90 threshold, so you are not being surcharged and correction equipment would not pay for itself. If anyone has quoted you capacitors, this is the number to ask them about.
No action
Four · and only now, the rate
We put your meter out to every retailer who will quote it. The best offer for a 24-month term came back at 6.05¢, against the 6.40¢ you are paying. On 310,000 kilowatt-hours that is $1,085 a year, and it takes about ten minutes to sign.
It is worth doing. It is also worth seeing in proportion: the spread between the best and worst quote we received was 0.6¢, so the entire decision is worth about $1,860 a year at the extremes. The demand charge, the rate schedule and the tax question together are worth more than double that, and not one of them appears in any quote you will ever be sent.
Five · what it adds up to
| Stagger the morning start | $1,400 |
| Move to the right utility rate schedule | $980 |
| Sales-tax exemption, going forward | $2,290 |
| Better energy rate at renewal | $1,085 |
| Every year, once all four are done | $5,755 |
Over the next contract
$17,265
3 years at $5,755. This is the number worth holding in your head, because none of it is a one-off.
Claimed back, once
up to $9,160
Sales tax already paid can be recovered up to four years, if the predominant-use study supports it. Paid as a refund.
3 years, including the refund
$26,425
Against a bill of $29,650 a year. Roughly ten months of electricity, recovered out of a facility that looked like it was running fine.
Two honest qualifications. The peak figure assumes you recover about half the gap between your spike and your working load, which is what a schedule change realistically achieves. The tax figures depend on a predominant-use study clearing the threshold, and if it does not, that line goes to zero and the three-year total falls to $10,395. We would rather show you both numbers than the flattering one.
Sources and method
Delivery charges and rate schedules from the utility's filed tariffs. Interval data from Smart Meter Texas at 15-minute resolution, which is the same resolution the demand charge is calculated on. Retailer quotes are the raw replies to a request we sent on your behalf. Every figure in section one was checked against your own bills and adds up to what you actually paid. Where it did not add up, we said so rather than rounding the difference away.
Every facility is different, and the point of doing this properly is that the findings come out of your own meter rather than a template. Send one bill and we will show you.