Rate schedules
How to Choose the Right Electricity Rate Schedule
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.
Subject area
Commercial Electricity Rate Schedules
Utilities publish more than one tariff for the same service territory, and being on the wrong one is among the most common avoidable overcharges in commercial billing. A general service schedule, a time-of-use schedule and a real-time pricing option will each price the same load differently, and the switching rules — notice periods, minimum stay, eligibility thresholds by demand level — are set out in the tariff book rather than on the bill. This section explains how to read a rate schedule, how to model your own interval data against alternative tariffs before committing, what standby and supplemental service cost a site with on-site generation, and how riders and surcharges attach on top of whichever schedule you land on.
What a rate schedule is
A rate schedule, also called a tariff or a schedule of rates, is the document a utility files with its state commission that sets every price and rule for a class of customer: who qualifies, which determinants are billed, the price of each, and the terms for moving to another schedule. The bill applies the schedule; it does not reproduce it. How to read a utility tariff book shows where each of those rules sits.
The main types of commercial rate schedule
| Type | What is different about it | Read |
|---|---|---|
| General service with demand | One energy price, plus a demand charge on your highest interval | Demand-heavy and energy-heavy tariffs |
| Time-of-use | Energy, and often demand, priced by period of the day and season | Time-of-use rates |
| Critical peak pricing | A few event days a year at a very high price, a discount on the rest | Critical peak pricing |
| Real-time pricing | Hourly prices linked to the wholesale market | Real-time pricing |
| Standby and supplemental | Service for sites that generate part of their own power | Standby charges |
Which commercial rates include time-of-use pricing?
Time-of-use pricing appears in more than one place: as a schedule of its own, as an optional version of a general service schedule at many utilities, and inside critical peak and real-time pricing, which build on the same idea. Which of them your account can elect is set by the eligibility clause of each schedule in your utility's tariff.
For a daytime-intensive operation, the fact that matters is that time-of-use prices the daytime hours highest. A site whose load sits inside the on-peak window and cannot move usually pays more after switching, not less, because the schedule rewards load that moves. Time-of-use rates for commercial accounts models that case with numbers.
Choosing between them
Being on the wrong schedule is one of the most common avoidable overcharges on a commercial bill, and the way to find out is to price a year of your own interval data under each schedule you qualify for: how to choose the right electricity rate schedule. Read the notice period, minimum stay and eligibility terms before electing, because a switch that turns out to be wrong may not be reversible for a year: switching rate schedules.
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Rate schedules
Critical Peak Pricing for Commercial Customers
A few event days a year at a very high price, paid for by a discount on every other day. Whether that suits a site comes down to how many kilowatts it can drop when an event is called.
Rate schedules
Demand-Heavy and Energy-Heavy Tariffs — Which Fits Your Load
Two schedules can collect the same revenue from a utility's customers and treat your particular load very differently. One number tells you which side you are on.
Rate schedules
How to Read a Utility Tariff Book
The tariff is the contract, it is public, and almost nobody opens it. A method for extracting the six things that actually determine what you pay.
Rate schedules
Real-Time Pricing — Who It Suits and Who It Ruins
Hourly wholesale-linked prices reward a site that can move load and punish one that cannot. The annual average is not the number that decides it.
Rate schedules
Standby and Supplemental Charges for On-Site Generation
Rate schedules
Time-of-Use Rates for Commercial Accounts
Commercial time-of-use rates price each kWh by when it is used. How TOU schedules and windowed demand charges work, and how to tell whether one will save you money.