Working on a case with PSO here in Oklahoma where a hospital is paying standby service charges for their emergency generator. The charges seem excessive - $2,800/month for a 500kW backup system that maybe runs 10 hours per year during testing. Utility claims it's to maintain grid capacity for when the generator is offline. Has anyone successfully challenged standby charges or gotten them reduced? The tariff language is pretty vague about how they calculate the capacity requirement.
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Anyone ever recovered money on standby charges?
Ed, I looked into standby charges with Entergy Arkansas a few years ago but didn't get anywhere. Their position was that they have to maintain transmission and distribution capacity even when customers are generating their own power. The monthly fee covers that reserved capacity cost. Tough nut to crack from what I could tell.
Thanks Helen. That's what I'm running into too. PSO says the standby charge is based on the generator nameplate capacity, not actual usage patterns. Seems unfair for emergency-only generators but I'm not finding much precedent for successful challenges. Might have to chalk this one up as unrecoverable.