Weird!!

[sparky723]

A friend just called me to ask me an electrical question. He is on a board that runs the local civic center. Last night at the board meeting, he said it was brought to everyones attention that the electric bill had quadrupled. He gave me figures and the month, but thats irrelevant.
His inital question to me was " How to do test to see if you have voltage 'leaking' ". I told him that doesnt sound right to me. Its not like a water bill that is too high because you left the water on.
I asked if they have left units on to keep the place warm (or cool) depending on what they want inside for anyone using it. He said that the month in question was a light usage month for the center and there hasnt been a difference in the settings for the a/c-heat. I then asked if they have added any more units.-NO. Have they added any new appliances to the kitchen thats in the unit?-NO. Has anything been added?-NO.
Am I thinking logically? or am I missing something?
The guy who is the local ( and only) competition is an huge nemesis to me. He is the one who normally does their elec. work. When I asked why they didnt call him, they said "he's too expensive". Go figure.:roll:

 

[480sparky]

Budget billing anniversary.

Their previous usage had gone up, and budget billing hadn't. POCO has increased their billing to compensate.

Have them get out the past 12 months of bills and look at their usage, not dollars spent.

 

[mdshunk]

Underground feeders, electric water heaters, well pumps, and heat pumps are the usual suspects.

 

[kbsparky]

Estimated meter reading.

 

[mdshunk]

Estimated meter reading.

Yeah, but unless they were estimating it for 6 months on end, and they finally caught up with a real reading, there's no good reason for the bill to quadrouple.

I have a customer that got a $30,000 bill when the power company figured out they had the wrong CT's installed for a good many years. The person was telling me they got on a payment plan with the PoCo, but they still got a "collection" black mark on their credit report. How do you like that?

 

[quogueelectric]

Oil surcharge. As the price of oil skyrocketed our local poco added this extra oil fired turbune at peaking stations and such. Now our oil surcharge is actually higher than the bill itself in most cases.

 

[KentAT]

Did the usage as detailed on the bill actually increase, or is the friend just looking at the $$? That determines the direction to investigate.

I'm sure my plant's bill is quite small compared to most of the customers of the members of this forum at $6k-$17k per month.

A couple of years back, PA separated the generation charges from the distribution charges and allowed you to select your power generation supplier. We had waited for a year or two and when we transferred to another generator and we saw some billing errors occur - can't remember the reason why. The errors amounted to 30-40% for each of the first 3 months.

I began to use an excel spreadsheet that I have populated with the current tarrifs and formulas (updated as the costs change), punch in the meter reading info of billing demand and total KWH, and it spits out exactly what my bill should be. That's how I caught the errors.

Kent

 

[hardworkingstiff]

The guy who is the local ( and only) competition is an huge nemesis to me. He is the one who normally does their elec. work. When I asked why they didnt call him, they said "he's too expensive". Go figure.:roll:

I figure you have pricing power.

 

[Besoeker]

I have a customer that got a $30,000 bill when the power company figured out they had the wrong CT's installed for a good many years.

Who installed the wrong CTs?
Wouldn't that be part of the POCO metering?
No statute of limitation?