One 15-minute peak sets the demand charge for the month, and the loads that run when nobody is in set much of the rest. We meter both at the board, bring the peak down, switch off what should not be running, and read the panel again to show it.
Three rooftop units start inside the same 15 minutes. Staggering them removes the interval that set the charge.
A commercial electricity bill carries two charges that respond to different things, and both are decided on the panel.
A shape, and it describes no particular facility. Interval length, time-of-use windows and ratchets vary by utility and by tariff.
The energy charge bills the kilowatt-hours used across the month, the area under the curve. The demand charge bills the highest average demand in any single 15-minute interval, whatever the rest of the month looked like.
Equipment starting together in the morning sets the second. Lighting, ventilation and a circuit nobody can name running through the night set a large share of the first. Neither shows on the bill as a circuit; both show on the panel.
So the work is done at the board: meter each circuit, find the interval and the hours, change what runs when, and read the panel again.
Loads that land in the same 15 minutes and need not: staggered, interlocked or held under a limit, so the interval that set the charge no longer does.
Lighting, ventilation and setpoints that run as though the facility were open, and the circuit nobody can account for. Scheduled, set back or retired.
Equipment drawing above its duty: a fan at full speed for partial load, a dirty coil, a motor past its service. Repaired, slowed or corrected, and read again.
What sets your peak, what it costs on your tariff, and what new load would do to it.
Which loads can move out of the interval that sets your charge, the change designed on your own demand, and each month's peak held under the target.
What the facility draws when nobody is in, circuit by circuit, which of it should not be running, and the kW that comes off when it is switched off or set back.
We read 12 months of your utility's interval data and find the interval that set each month's charge.
We place the peak in its day and its week, so it is clear when it lands and how often it returns.
We split the peak by circuit, from the panel record, and read a circuit directly wherever it was measured.
We price the charge on your own tariff, as it is today and with the load you are adding.
Four floors over a lobby and a car park, open 6 am to 9 pm on weekdays. Its bill says what the week cost. It cannot say which floor, which hours or which machine.
Metered on the panel, most of what nobody can account for is drawn while nobody is in, or by equipment working harder than the day needs. Switch each change on and the day answers.
For what usually sets the peak at a property, a grocery, a plant or a hotel, see Lower Demand Charges.
Every 15-minute interval of the year, the same intervals your demand charge is billed on, with the tariff that prices them.
Loggers on the main boards and the key circuits for a month, so each load is read where it draws, at the peak and through the night.
The breaker list typed from photographs of the board, so a kilowatt at 2 am has a circuit name against it and not a guess.
Loggers are fitted and collected by a licensed electrician with the panel live, and they come off at the end of the window. Each change is read again at its own circuit the month after it is made.
The interval that set each month's charge, with its date and time.
From 12 months of interval dataThe loads running in that interval, named from the panel record, and what draws when the facility is closed.
Reviewed by an engineerThe peak and the after-hours load measured again after the changes, against the month before.
Every month the rules runEnergy Cost reads 12 months of your utility's interval data and meters the main boards for a month, so each load is read where it draws.
The daily rules run on a controller as schedules, interlocks and setpoint limits an engineer wrote and signed. It is ours, run by us, and every action it takes can be traced to a rule.
