Duke Energy Carolinas is rolling out Schedule LP (Large Power) for customers over 1MW demand. Effective July 1st. Anyone else seeing this? Looks like it has time-of-use components and an entirely different demand charge structure.
Duke Energy NC implementing new large power rate - Schedule LP
Yeah, I've got two clients in Charlotte getting migrated automatically. The TOU periods are 7am-11am and 1pm-7pm Monday-Friday. Peak demand charge is $15.82/kW vs $12.45 on the old schedule. But the energy rates are lower during off-peak.
The power factor adjustment changed too. It's now 90% threshold instead of 85%. That's going to help most industrial customers. My client in Wilson was getting hit with PF penalties on the old rate.
I'm seeing some confusion about the coincident peak component. It's based on Duke's system peak, not the customer's peak. That's a big change from Schedule LGS. Anyone know how they're calculating that?
The coincident peak is measured during Duke's top 10 peak hours in the previous 12 months. Usually summer afternoons. It's averaged over those 10 hours. Adds about $3.50/kW to most bills.
Watch the ratchet provision on Schedule LP. It's 80% of the highest demand in the previous 11 months, but only during on-peak hours. That's actually better than the old LGS rate for customers with off-peak loads.
Schedule LP represents Duke's move toward more sophisticated rate design. The TOU and coincident peak components better reflect actual system costs. Good for auditors - more complexity means more opportunities to find optimal rate schedules.