Working on a VA hospital in Phoenix and they're getting hit with $8,200/month in emergency generator standby charges from APS. The facility manager says they've never actually used the backup power in 3 years but APS claims they need to reserve capacity. Anyone else seeing these kinds of charges at VA facilities?
VA Hospital Emergency Generator Charges - Normal or Gouging?
That's highway robbery, Ruben. We fought similar charges at a VA in Tampa with TECO - turned out they were double-billing for both the emergency service and regular standby demand. Saved them $4,800/month once we got it straightened out. Check if they're categorizing the generators correctly on the rate schedule.
Ed's right about the double-billing. Also check if the VA is getting their federal exemption applied properly. Some utilities try to sneak in state taxes or municipal fees that federal facilities shouldn't pay. We recovered $23K in backdated credits for a client once they realized this.
Good catches everyone. Ruben, also verify the generator capacity they're billing for matches what's actually installed. We've seen cases where utilities bill for the nameplate capacity but the actual interconnected load is much smaller. VA hospitals are particularly vulnerable to this since they often have multiple generators with different purposes (life safety vs. general backup).
Thanks all - you were spot on. Found they were billing for 2MW capacity when only 1.2MW is actually connected to critical loads. Plus they had a municipal utility tax that VA shouldn't be paying. Going to save them about $6,100/month going forward!