Working on my second audit ever and completely whiffed on what should have been an easy catch. Georgia Power account for a small manufacturing shop in Augusta. Spent two weeks analyzing demand charges, power factor penalties, fuel adjustments - went deep into every line item looking for errors. Found nothing significant, maybe $800 in minor calculation discrepancies. Client wasn't happy with the small recovery. Three days after I submitted my report, they called saying their electrician noticed the CT ratio on their meter was wrong. Been multiplying by 200 instead of 240 for eighteen months. Simple meter multiplier error worth $67,000 and I completely missed it because I never verified the basic meter configuration. Feel like I should have caught something that obvious. How do you make sure you don't miss the forest for the trees?
Missed obvious meter multiplier error - felt like an idiot
Don't beat yourself up too much, Greg. I made a similar mistake with Southern California Edison on a retail account in Santa Clarita. Spent weeks analyzing time-of-use charges and demand ratchets, never bothered to verify the meter constants. Turned out they had the wrong PT ratio programmed for two years - 4.16kV instead of 2.4kV. $89k recovery that I almost missed. Now meter verification is literally the first thing I do on every audit. Get the meter test reports, verify CT and PT ratios, check programming constants. The fancy analysis doesn't matter if the basic meter setup is wrong.
Avista territory up here in Spokane - had the exact same experience on a hospital account. Dove straight into analyzing their complex rate schedule with multiple demand charges and seasonal adjustments. Missed a simple VT ratio error that had been wrong for 14 months. Worth $43k and should have been the first thing I checked. Lesson learned: always start with meter basics before getting into tariff analysis. CT ratios, PT ratios, meter constants, programming verification. If the foundation is wrong, everything else is meaningless. Most utilities will provide meter installation records if you request them formally.