Happy 4th everyone! Quick question about Idaho Power's Schedule 9 TOU rates. Their tariff lists Independence Day as a designated holiday but I'm seeing peak rates applied today on a client's preliminary usage report. The tariff clearly states holidays are treated as weekend/off-peak for billing purposes. Has anyone else caught billing errors where utilities forget to program federal holidays into their TOU rate engines? This seems like it should be automatic but apparently not. Client usage today was about 800 kWh during what should have been off-peak hours.
Idaho Power TOU rates - holiday schedule confusion
Alice, I see this constantly with Idaho Power. Their AMI billing system requires manual updates for each holiday and someone in their IT department apparently doesn't keep a good calendar. Memorial Day, Labor Day, and July 4th are the worst offenders. I've gotten in the habit of checking holiday billing for all my TOU customers. Last year they missed Thanksgiving Friday on about 300 accounts before I caught it. Always worth a phone call to their commercial billing department.
Same issue up here with PGE in Oregon. Their Schedule 32 TOU rate was charging peak prices on MLK Day when it should have been holiday off-peak rates. The problem is these utilities hardcode the holiday dates instead of using a dynamic calendar system. When holidays fall on different dates or they add new federal holidays, their billing systems don't automatically adjust. I maintain a spreadsheet of all federal holidays and cross-reference every TOU bill during holiday weeks.
From a systems perspective, this is inexcusable in 2022. Modern MDM platforms should have built-in holiday calendars that automatically update. The fact that utilities are still manually programming individual holiday dates shows how antiquated their billing systems really are. AEP Ohio had similar issues until they upgraded to a newer MDM system that handles holiday logic automatically. Idaho Power needs to invest in proper infrastructure instead of relying on manual processes that inevitably fail.
Update on the July 4th billing error - Idaho Power admitted the mistake and credited my client $340 for the peak rate overcharges. Apparently their billing analyst forgot to update the holiday table before the July billing run. They claim they've implemented a new process to prevent this but I've heard that before. Warren's right about Memorial Day and Labor Day being frequent problems. I'm going to start proactively calling them before every federal holiday to make sure their system is properly configured.
This thread is gold. I'm dealing with Alabama Power on a similar issue where they charged peak TOU rates during Hurricane Ida when the governor declared a state emergency. Their tariff says utility-declared emergencies suspend TOU billing but apparently nobody told their computer system. $15,000 in bogus peak charges during a natural disaster. Sometimes I think these utilities program their systems to maximize revenue and hope nobody notices the errors.
Kevin makes a great point about emergency declarations. Dominion Energy Virginia has similar tariff language about suspending TOU during declared emergencies but their billing system never got the memo. I caught them charging peak rates during the February 2021 winter storm when Governor Northam had declared a state of emergency. Had to fight for six months to get credits issued. These utilities really need better communication between their emergency operations and billing departments.
The emergency billing issue is huge. During the Texas freeze in February 2021, several ERCOT utilities kept charging peak TOU rates even during rolling blackouts when customers had no control over their usage. The PUC eventually ordered retroactive billing adjustments but it took months of pressure. These automated billing systems are great for efficiency but terrible at handling exceptional circumstances that require human judgment.
Warren brings up an excellent point about the Texas situation. PGE here in Oregon actually suspended TOU billing automatically during the ice storm last February, but only after customer advocates raised hell about it. The technology exists to handle emergency scenarios properly - utilities just need to program their systems with appropriate logic and override capabilities. Too many of them treat billing as set-it-and-forget-it when it really requires ongoing oversight.
Great discussion everyone. I'm compiling a master list of all federal holidays and common emergency scenarios to share with Idaho Power's billing department. If we can get them to proactively program these exceptions into their system, it'll save everyone headaches down the road. The key is getting utilities to think beyond just the happy path scenarios when they configure their MDM systems.
Alice, excellent initiative on the holiday calendar. MLGW here in Memphis uses a similar proactive approach now after we had multiple holiday billing errors in 2020. I'd be happy to share our template if it helps with your Idaho Power discussions. The utilities that embrace this kind of collaborative approach tend to have far fewer billing errors overall. Prevention is always better than correction after the fact.