Working with a lumber mill customer in Spokane getting hit hard by Avista power factor penalties. They're on Schedule 25 (Large General Service) and penalties are running $2,800/month for the past six months. The facility has large motors for saws and planers, mostly from the 1990s. Plant electrician insists they installed capacitor correction in 2019 but clearly it's not working properly. Avista is claiming average PF of 0.71 lagging. Anyone dealt with Avista PF disputes before?
Avista power factor penalty dispute - need advice
Eddie, I'm also in Spokane and work with several Avista industrial customers. Schedule 25 has a 0.90 PF requirement with penalties starting at 0.85. For a lumber mill that size, $2,800/month sounds about right if they're really running 0.71. Those old motors are power factor killers, especially the larger saws. The 2019 capacitor installation might be undersized or the control logic could be wrong. Have you done a power study to see actual reactive power demand?
Similar situation here in Tacoma with PSE. Old lumber equipment just eats reactive power. Ted's right about checking the capacitor sizing. We found one mill where they calculated correction based on nameplate data but actual motor loading was much higher than expected. The caps were only correcting about 60% of needed reactive power. Also check if any motors were added or replaced since 2019 without adjusting the correction system.
Good points from both of you. I'm planning a full power quality survey next week during normal production. The mill did add two new edgers in 2022 (75hp each) but nobody thought to recalculate the capacitor requirements. The existing correction system is just fixed caps, no automatic switching. Janet, what kind of penalty relief has PSE been willing to negotiate while equipment gets upgraded?
PSE has been pretty reasonable if you have a solid improvement plan. We got them to waive penalties for three months while a customer installed automatic PF correction. Key is showing good faith effort with firm installation dates and contractor agreements. Document everything - motor additions, current correction inadequacy, planned improvements. Avista should have similar policies.
Eddie, definitely get Avista involved early in the correction planning. Their commercial engineers are actually pretty helpful and want to see customers succeed. They'd rather have you fix the problem than keep paying penalties. I'd recommend automatic switched capacitor banks given the variable loading in lumber mills. Fixed caps won't handle the load swings when different saws cycle on and off.
Had great success with ABB automatic PF correction systems in similar applications here in Alabama. The newer controllers handle motor starting transients much better than older fixed cap systems. For lumber mills, you want fast-switching contactors because the load changes are so rapid. Budget around $15,000-25,000 for proper automatic correction on a facility that size.
Thanks everyone. Power survey confirmed what you suspected - existing caps are grossly undersized for current load. The 2022 motor additions put reactive demand about 40% higher than the correction system can handle. Getting quotes from ABB and Schneider for automatic switched banks. Avista agreed to penalty relief starting April if we have equipment on order by March 15th.
Great outcome Eddie! That's exactly how these disputes should be handled. Document the equipment inadequacy, get utility buy-in on the improvement plan, and negotiate penalty relief during installation. Shows other members that utilities will work with customers who are serious about fixing PF issues rather than just complaining about penalties.
Ann's absolutely right. Avista has been very cooperative on these cases when customers present realistic solutions. The key is treating it as a technical problem to solve rather than an adversarial billing dispute. Good job getting this resolved constructively.
Excellent case study for how PF penalty disputes should be handled. Eddie did everything right - identified root cause, engaged utility early, developed realistic improvement plan, and negotiated reasonable penalty relief. This thread should be required reading for anyone dealing with similar issues. The collaborative approach always works better than fighting over billing details.