Daniel Writes

Your Commercial Electricity Bill: Pay Attention to These Five Elements to Manage Spending In many cases, commercial utility bills can be as complex as taxes – some with as many as 6k words spread out in 18 pages. This can be confusing for many business owners, complex owners and other managers of different commercial properties. Fortunately, most details found in the electricity bill are governing filler. But these five elements are pertinent to helping you manage your energy consumption. 1. The Rate Are you paying by the kilowatt or each kilowatt-hour? You can get a rough estimate rate by dividing your total spending by the energy consumed. However, to understand how electricity use is driving costs, map your demand and use the rates by time of day as well as season. While painful, the exercise helps you understand what incentives are built into the rate structure for a sound energy management foundation. 2. The Billing Unit Most large facilities are outfitted with numerous main meters and submeters. You must understand exactly what meters are billed and the load that is attached. Since rate structure is complicated, as shown by the point above, you must manage and understand each billed meter separately. 3. The Demand Many commercial electricity bills contain the demand component that is a measure in kW. Start by figuring out the percentage of your energy bill that demand drives and how the demand factor varies over 12 months. During summer in California, for example, 40 percent of the bills are made up of demand charges. 4. Your Consumption Most facilities are active in tracking and managing their electrical consumption in kWh. Find out whether your facility is on a Time-of-Use tariff and explore the possibilities of shifting the load. 5. Programs Specialized programs like demand response and others can be complex, but they are all intended to save clients money when appropriately applied – some even come with a savings guarantee. Find out what programs are currently locked into and whether any default programs may help you better optimize your facility. At the very least, make sure you enroll in any value response program available. Doing this offers an easy way of showing the immediate impact of your energy management efforts. The Other Components To make sure your electricity bill is clear and makes sense, here are the other components that may appear:      The billing date – contains date bill was issued and billing period Payment information – amount owing on the last bill, last payment received, and outstanding balance Taxes – collected by the billing company on behalf of the federal government and municipal operating fee collected on behalf of municipalities Total charges – new charges for the current billing period Amount due or amount to be withdrawn – balance outstanding on account from the last bill and the new charges In case the billing company is unable to secure a reading on scheduled dates, they estimate your current bill depending on past usage. The next actual meter reading adjusts for any under or overestimate. If you’ve ever studied your utility bills, there are times when the total cost is comprised of charges for demand and charges for consumption. Sometimes, the demand change may exceed consumption change. So, it is a good idea to understand how the electric demand and consumption charges are calculated to limit both whiles saving your facility some money.