Just wrapped up an audit for a regional pizza chain - 12 locations all on the wrong rate schedule with Duke Energy. They had small general service accounts incorrectly classified as large commercial. Recovered $47,000 over 24 months across all locations!
Success story: Restaurant chain rate corrections
Nice work Elmer! That's exactly why I love franchise clients. Once you find the error pattern at one location, you can usually replicate it across the whole chain. What was the average monthly bill size?
Bills ranged from $2,100 to $3,800/month per location. The threshold for large commercial was 50kW and most were running 35-45kW peak demand. Utility had them on Schedule LGS instead of SGS-2. Rate difference was about $0.02/kWh plus lower demand charges.
That's a solid find! Did you have to fight with Duke on the classification or did they accept it pretty easily once you showed the demand data?
Actually went pretty smooth. Their commercial rep admitted they'd been sloppy with the classifications during a big system migration a few years back. Got refund checks within 6 weeks.