Vernon C from Greenville, SC. Duke Energy Carolinas territory. Client is a textile manufacturing plant on the OPT-V TOU rate. Duke has summer and winter TOU windows — summer peak is 1pm-9pm, winter peak is 6am-1pm. The switch date is October 1 for summer-to-winter and April 1 for winter-to-summer. I pulled the bills for the last 18 months and the October switch did not happen last year. My client has been billed using summer TOU windows through the entire winter. Since their heavy production runs are 6am to 2pm, the winter windows would have captured most of that as on-peak. But the summer windows only captured 1pm-2pm as on-peak during their production hours. So they have been underbilled for on-peak energy since October.
Utility forgot to switch seasonal TOU windows — summer rates in December
Vernon, this is an interesting case because the error actually benefited your client. They paid less than they should have. Are you disclosing this to Duke? And what is your obligation to the client here?
Barbara, great question and one I wrestled with. Ethically, I have to disclose it. If I found it, Duke will eventually find it too and the back-bill will be worse the longer it runs. Better to get ahead of it. I also want to maintain credibility with Duke for future disputes. So yes, I am disclosing it. But I am also going to negotiate the back-bill terms.
Vernon is handling this exactly right. Disclosure builds credibility with the utility and protects the client from a larger surprise later. And it gives you leverage — you are voluntarily bringing an error to their attention, which puts you in a stronger negotiating position on the back-bill terms and on any future disputes.
The other angle here — if Duke missed the seasonal switch on this meter, they might have missed it on other meters too. I checked my other Duke OPT-V clients and found the same error on one more account. That client WAS being overcharged because their load profile is heavier in the afternoon. So the summer windows hurt them during winter. That account is owed about $4,200.
Good thinking checking other accounts. When a utility makes a systematic error like missing a seasonal switch, it often affects multiple meters in the same batch. The billing system probably has a flag for the seasonal window change and the flag did not trigger for a group of accounts. Worth checking if any other members have Duke OPT-V clients who should be reviewed.
Update: disclosed the underbilling to Duke on the textile plant. They appreciated the notification and agreed to a 6-month payback plan for the roughly $3,100 owed. On the other client who was overcharged, Duke credited $4,200 immediately. Net across both cases: my client pool came out $1,100 ahead and my reputation with Duke is stronger. The seasonal switch has been corrected on both accounts. Duke also confirmed they found 14 other OPT-V accounts with the same missed switch and are correcting all of them.