On 5/29/2011 11:53 PM, Home Guy wrote:
Robert Green wrote:

His bill probably holds the sad tale of a one time excursion
into a higher rate zone that's cost him big time. ...

I've located some PDF documents that my local utility has on-line.

I have to have a "12-month average demand" equal to or more than 50 kW,
or have a 12-month rolling kwh consumption greater than 150,000 KWhrs in
order to have a demand meter. 150,000 kwhrs divided by 12 is 12,500 kwh
per month, which is about 4 times my average monthly consumption.

So no, I don't think I've experienced any one-time excursion into a
higher rate zone, at least not in terms of being demand-metered (if
indeed there are any other ways of entering a higher rate zone).

OK, there's at least another data point. What does the bill itself say
are the rates just for confirmation that they used the same (or only
fuel factors or other known rate adjustments)?

Again, does the bill actual say every month is a "real" reading or
estimated or averaged/computer-generated one? That should be
discernible as well. That the months that are such obvious outliers are
both early in different calendar years and that the other months are
more or less regular makes me think they aren't reading the meter
physically on the first of every month as you think but are using a
use-estimating/averaging plan w/ the annual catchup that's getting you
because the average isn't high enough for the total annual use.

I'd again ask; does that same trend hold for the other four years or so
since you've had the building? I'm thinking it's a good likelihood it
does. What is the annual _total_ use for each year? Is that pretty
consistent?

Picking up the phone and confirming that would be a start. Sending a
copy of the summary statements that show the anomaly and asking for an
explanation of that would be another step.

The single-month discrepancies don't jibe w/ the other ideas thrown out
imo unless there's a client/renter/interloper who has a one-month-a-year
fetish to run a kiln 24/7 or somesuch large (very) intermittent load.

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