×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Industrial Tariff calculation

Industrial Tariff calculation

Industrial Tariff calculation

(OP)
I'm looking at my local tariff and I am confused as what I am expecting vs. what I am actually calculating seems to be different. The thing that looks odd is the Energy charges. If I have a 10,000kW load running 24/7, I would expect that to come out to ~500k/month but from below, it's alittle less than $10k. Am I missing something? The monthly rate on distribution is based on kW which if I assume 10kW, I'm at 8k in monthly base fees which sounds right.

Energy Charges (kWh)
First Block (0 to 400 kWh/kW)...................................................$0.00137 per kilowatt-hour
Second Block (over 400 kWh/kW).............................................$0.00133 per kilowatt-hour

RE: Industrial Tariff calculation

Your price per kWHr numbers are suspect. I don't think there's anyplace where is costs fractions of a cent per kWHr.

RE: Industrial Tariff calculation

I think there's a decimal point in the wrong place in those energy charges. Or something. Even 10 times higher is too low. 100 times higher would probably be too high - unless you're in Alaska or HI.

RE: Industrial Tariff calculation

(OP)
That would make sense on another schedule rate where it was showing .000634 and it being off by 100. But this schedule doesn't seem right. I looked through the schedule and didn't see anything weird and other companies schedule rates make sense.

RE: Industrial Tariff calculation

Post a copy of the rate schedule or a link to the rate schedule on the utility's web site.

RE: Industrial Tariff calculation

I suspect this may some type of supplemental "fuel surcharge", not the actual kWh rate. You need the actual published tariff or rate schedule.

RE: Industrial Tariff calculation

When you look at the demand charges, the utility could affors to pay the customers for kWHr usage.
With the profit coming from demand and KVA charges, the ridiculously low energy rate may be a ploy to keep the cost of co-generation from alternate sources at ridiculously low levels.
What is the stock market symbol for that utility? Are they publicly traded?

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

RE: Industrial Tariff calculation

(OP)
I don't know much about the company. But I can see the kva charge being the key. With a 10MW@90 pf, that comes out to be close to 320k a month on just the reactive power.

Now when you say the cost of cogen, are you meaning that the industrial wouldn't employ cogen since the cost of electricity rate is cheaper?

RE: Industrial Tariff calculation

If they are charging such a low rate for energy, they may not be paying co-gen operators a fair price for energy.
Co-gen would make sense to reduce your KVA charges and control your power factor. I suspect that it may not be economical to sell excess power back to the utility.
Note the carry-over charges. A failure of an industrial co-gen installation for a short time may erase most or all of the savings.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

RE: Industrial Tariff calculation

Not directly in response to this question, but related to the rate schedule -

Given what I've seen advocated by the self generation fanatics, this is exactly where I would expect utility rate tariffs to go. Put all of the cost into the capacity (fixed costs) and take all or nearly all out of the energy (variable costs). I'm actually surprised to see a tariff that tilts so far toward capacity instead of energy, but an awful lot of what the utility needs to recover every month is the cost of the infrastructure necessary to deliver the energy. Traditionally, much, if not all, of the infrastructure costs have gotten rolled into the energy costs, but as it becomes more and more possible to have no net energy consumption it behooves the utilities to recover their fixed costs independently of the energy costs.

RE: Industrial Tariff calculation

Without reading the full text of the link, could the rates in the OP be the un-bundled DELIVERY charge only, with a separate energy COMMODITY charge over and above that?

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources