Just closed the biggest find of my career. Steel mill in Akron on Ohio Edison. The CTs were installed during a service upgrade in 2009. The CT ratio should have been 800:1 based on the transformer capacity. The installer programmed 1600:1 — exactly double. Every kWh and kW reading for the past 5 years has been doubled. The client has been paying roughly $48,000/month more than they should. Total overcharge: approximately $2.88 million. Ohio Edison confirmed the error after a meter test. Negotiating the refund period now.
Steel mill audit — CT ratio error doubled their bill for 5 years
That is staggering. $2.88 million. Congrats Lloyd. What tipped you off? Was the bill obviously too high or did you have to dig for the CT ratio?
The bill wasn't obviously wrong — a steel mill with $95,000/month in electric costs doesn't seem unreasonable. What tipped me off was comparing the kWh per square foot to industry benchmarks. The usage was roughly double what a comparable mill should be. That led me to check the metering configuration. The CT nameplate said 800:5 but the billing record showed 1600:5. Once I saw that, I knew.
This is exactly why industrial accounts are so valuable to audit. The errors are often larger because the meters are higher capacity with more complex configurations. And the benchmarking approach Lloyd used is the right way to screen for metering errors — if the usage per unit of production or per square foot is dramatically different from comparable facilities, the meter configuration should be investigated. Outstanding work Lloyd. This is one for the textbooks.
Update: Ohio Edison agreed to a 4-year refund — $2.3 million. My contingency fee is $690,000. Still can't quite believe it. From this day forward, I check CT ratios on every industrial account regardless of whether the bill looks reasonable.