Priya N. in Chicago here. I've been manually tracking ComEd's fuel adjustment charges month by month for several clients but it's getting unwieldy. Does anyone have an Excel template that automatically pulls these monthly adjustments? The charges have varied from $0.0234/kWh in January 2024 to $0.0447/kWh last month.
Fuel adjustment clauses - tracking monthly changes in Excel
Eugene W. here. I built something similar for AEP Ohio's fuel rider. The trick is setting up a lookup table that references the effective date ranges since fuel adjustments often have delayed implementation. You'll want columns for filing date, effective date, $/kWh rate, and expiration date. I can share the template if you're interested.
Greg S. from Omaha. OPPD doesn't use fuel adjustment clauses but I've worked with utilities that do. Make sure you're accounting for the lag time - some utilities file quarterly but implement monthly changes based on prior period actual costs. Also watch for true-up adjustments that can hit several months later.
Steve Y. in Raleigh. Duke Energy Progress has been all over the map with their fuel adjustments lately. Went from -$0.0089/kWh credit in March 2024 to +$0.0356/kWh charge by December. I track these in a pivot table that automatically calculates monthly bill impacts for different usage levels. The key is getting historical data from the NCUC docket files.
Thanks everyone! Eugene W., I'd definitely like to see your template. Steve Y., can you share more details on how you set up that pivot table? I'm particularly interested in the bill impact calculations across different usage tiers.
Randy D. jumping in here. A few additional tips for tracking fuel adjustments: 1) Always verify you're using the correct customer class - residential vs small commercial often have different fuel rider rates, 2) Some utilities like TVA have fuel adjustments built into base rates rather than separate line items, 3) Watch for seasonal variations and weather normalization adjustments that can affect the calculations. I've seen auditors miss fuel adjustment changes that added $200+ monthly to large commercial bills.
Eugene W. here. Randy D. makes excellent points about customer class differences. I'll email you the template Priya N. - it includes tabs for residential, small commercial, and large commercial fuel riders since they often have different calculation methodologies. The AEP Ohio version even accounts for their transmission cost recovery rider which gets bundled with fuel costs.
Dana J. from Sioux City. MidAmerican Energy has a really clean online tool for historical fuel adjustment data going back five years. Wish all utilities made it this easy to track. You can export monthly data directly to Excel without having to dig through PUC filings.
Update: Eugene W.'s template worked perfectly! I was able to backfill 18 months of ComEd fuel adjustment data and identified $1,200 in overcharges for one client where they were incorrectly applying small commercial rates instead of residential. Thanks everyone for the help!