Michigan folks - client got a 27-day March bill from DTE Energy followed by a 35-day April bill. The March bill was only $789 but April jumped to $1,567. Customer is upset thinking DTE is manipulating billing periods to inflate bills. I know meter reading routes can cause variations but 27 days seems unusually short. Anyone familiar with DTE's policies on billing period lengths?
DTE 27-day bill then 35-day bill - is this normal?
Tina, I see this with AEP Indiana all the time. The key question is whether DTE is prorating fixed charges correctly. A 27-day period should get 27/30 of monthly charges like customer fees and demand minimums. The energy usage difference could be legitimate - April is when heating/cooling loads start ramping up. Check the daily usage patterns and degree days for both periods.
Greg, the daily usage definitely increased in April but the math still feels off. March averaged 41 kWh/day over 27 days, April averaged 38 kWh/day over 35 days. So the per-day usage actually decreased but the total bill nearly doubled. I'm thinking there might be a rate tier issue or they applied demand charges incorrectly. Still digging through DTE's tariff D1.1.
Tina, rate tier spillover is very common with irregular billing periods. If March usage was low enough to stay in lower tiers, then April's extended period pushed them into higher rate blocks. DTE's tiered rates can create dramatic bill increases even with similar daily usage. Also check if they hit any demand thresholds that changed their rate schedule classification. I've seen customers accidentally moved from residential to small commercial rates due to extended billing periods.
Randy, that's exactly what happened! The 35-day April period pushed them over 1,000 kWh which triggered a rate schedule change from D1.1 to D1.2. The customer charge alone went from $7.50 to $11.25. DTE should have caught this and advised the customer, but their system just automatically applied the higher rate. Working on getting them reclassified back to residential.
Good detective work! That automatic reclassification is a huge problem with extended billing periods. The customer probably qualifies for residential rates based on their actual monthly usage patterns, but DTE's system only looks at single bill totals. Fight that reclassification hard - once they're on commercial rates, it's much harder to get moved back. Document the daily usage averages to prove residential usage patterns.