Looking at a daycare center that's getting hit with demand charges of $180-220/month. Their peak usage is only around 18 kW which seems low for demand billing. Georgia Power has them on Schedule PLS-3 but I think they should be on TOU-GSD-1 which has no demand component. Load profile shows pretty steady usage during business hours, no big equipment cycling. Thoughts?
Daycare center demand charges - doesn't make sense
Daycare facilities often get misclassified because utilities see "school" and assume they need educational rate schedules. TOU-GSD-1 is probably right if they're under 30 kW peak. The steady usage pattern you described is typical for daycare - HVAC, lighting, not much else.
Check their service entrance size too. Sometimes facilities get put on demand billing simply because they have 100+ amp service even if actual usage doesn't warrant it. I've seen daycares with oversized electrical panels from previous tenant buildouts.
Service entrance is 200 amp but previous tenant was a restaurant so that explains the oversizing. Filed rate change request with Georgia Power. Should save them about $2,000/year going forward plus we're claiming 18 months of overpayments.
Nice catch! Restaurant-to-daycare conversions are gold mines for rate classification errors. The usage profiles are completely different but utilities rarely review rate assignments when tenants change. Always check the service history on these retail spaces.