Wendell T from Billings, MT. NorthWestern Energy is the IOU but a lot of my agricultural clients are on rural electric cooperatives — Yellowstone Valley Electric, Mid-Yellowstone Electric, Tongue River Electric. The co-ops have a completely different data request process than IOUs. Most do not have formal LOA forms. Some do not even have a commercial billing department. I called Yellowstone Valley and the person who answered was also the billing clerk, the meter reader, and the office manager. She said just have the member call me and tell me it is ok for you to see their bills. No form needed.
Rural electric co-ops — different LOA process entirely
Wendell, that is the co-op experience in Montana. The small ones are run by 3-5 people and they are incredibly informal. I had a co-op manager pull up my client account on his laptop at a coffee shop and print the bills on his home printer because the office printer was broken. Try getting that level of service from Xcel Energy.
Same experience in North Dakota with the co-ops. Cass County Electric will email billing history to anyone the member authorizes with a phone call. No written LOA required. The flip side is that the co-op billing systems are often basic and they may not have interval data or demand measurements for smaller accounts. You work with what they have.
Anita, the lack of interval data is the biggest limitation. Most Montana co-ops only have monthly kWh readings. No demand data, no power factor data, no TOU measurements. The audit is limited to rate classification and basic energy charge verification. But that is still where most of the errors are — co-op tariffs are simple and the billing is usually correct. The errors I find are almost always rate classification issues where the account should be on the agricultural rate but is on the general service rate.
The co-op market is underserved precisely because the informal processes and limited data deter auditors who are used to working with large IOUs. But the error rates on co-op accounts are comparable to IOU accounts and the competition is nearly zero. Wendell and Noel are smart to be working this market.
Randy, zero competition is exactly right. In my two years working with Montana co-ops I have never encountered another auditor. The savings per account are smaller but the volume is there and the acquisition cost is almost nothing — one phone call to the co-op manager and you are in.