The six subject areas
One pillar for each subject area. Each links out to the supporting pieces underneath it.
An industrial statement is four different charges stacked together, each priced on a different determinant. Here is what every line means and which ones respond to timing rather than volume.
A demand charge bills the highest 15-minute kW your site drew in the month, priced per kW. What it measures, how it is calculated, and why utilities charge it.
How to reduce peak demand and the demand charge it sets: six measures from free sequencing to batteries, and the interval-data diagnostic that picks the right one.
Being on the wrong tariff is among the most common avoidable overcharges in commercial billing. Modeling your own interval data against the alternatives settles it in a day.
The bill, the charge, the fix, the tariff, the power factor and the money.
Taking an industrial statement apart line by line, from billing determinants to riders.
Read the section 02What the charge measures, how the interval is defined, and where the money actually sits.
Read the section 03Changing the shape of a load curve rather than its area — and knowing which levers move it.
Read the section 04Choosing between general service, time-of-use and real-time pricing with your own interval data.
Read the section 05Reactive power, penalty clauses, capacitor sizing and the discounts hiding at higher voltage.
Read the section 06Avoided-cost modeling, tax credits, incentive programs and measurement rigorous enough for finance.
Read the sectionSupporting analysis across all six areas.
A 12-point electric bill audit for commercial accounts: meter multiplier, demand charge and ratchet arithmetic, riders and power factor. One bill, one tariff, one hour.
Billing determinants are the metered quantities a utility prices on your bill: energy, billed demand, kVA and power factor. What each one is and how to check it.
The meter multiplier on an electric bill turns the register reading into billed kWh and kW. How CT and PT ratios set it, and how to check that yours is right.
Rate riders are the charges added on top of the base rate: fuel adjustments, transmission recovery, program funding. What each attaches to, and what that does to your savings.
In a retail choice state the bill has two halves with two different owners. Shopping moves one of them. The demand charge usually sits in the half that no supplier can touch.
A kilowatt (kW) is a rate of electricity use; a kilowatt-hour (kWh) is an amount. What the difference means on a commercial bill, and why it changes savings math.
Writes and edits The Demand Charge. Background in administration and finance: cost analysis, TCO and ROI modeling, and reading tariff documents and primary regulation directly.
