Just had to share this painful lesson with everyone. Was auditing a large manufacturing client in Cleveland on FirstEnergy's GS-3 rate schedule. Found what I thought was a solid $23K in demand billing errors over 24 months. Client was thrilled, I was feeling pretty good about myself. Then the utility response came back - turns out there's a footnote in the tariff that allows for demand ratcheting adjustments during summer peak periods that I completely missed. Not only was there no overcharge, but we actually owed them $47K in credits we should have been taking! The client wasn't happy and neither was I. Always, ALWAYS read every single footnote in those tariffs, no matter how small the print.
Missed a $47K credit because I didn't read the tariff footnote
Ouch Frank, that's a tough one. I've been caught by footnotes before too, though not quite that expensive. Duquesne Light has some real buried gems in their industrial tariffs. Had a similar situation last year where a small footnote completely changed how maintenance charges were calculated. Now I print out every tariff and highlight every footnote before I even start the analysis. Takes longer but saves the embarrassment.
Been there Frank. Duke Energy here in Charlotte has footnotes that reference OTHER footnotes sometimes. It's like a treasure hunt from hell. I learned to keep a tariff interpretation log for each client now - every weird clause, every footnote, every exception gets documented. Saved my butt on a $180K textile plant audit last month when they tried to claim a peak shaving credit I'd never seen before.
Frank, I feel your pain brother. Ohio Edison got me good about 5 years ago on a similar deal. The lesson I learned was to always call the utility's commercial rate department BEFORE finalizing any audit. Yeah, they might tip them off that someone's looking, but I'd rather have that conversation up front than explain to a client why I missed a $47K opportunity. Most of the time those rate folks are actually helpful if you approach it right.
Georgia Power has some doozies too. What kills me is when they update tariffs and bury the changes in amendments or supplements. I missed a $12K fuel clause adjustment once because I was working off an old tariff version. Now I always verify I have the current version before starting, and I keep a change log of tariff updates. It's tedious but necessary.
PG&E out here loves their footnotes too. Had a client question why their summer rates seemed off, spent three days digging through bills only to find a tiny footnote about agricultural rate exceptions that saved them $8K annually. Sometimes the footnotes work in your favor! The key is just reading EVERYTHING, even if it seems irrelevant at first glance.
Thanks for sharing this Frank. MLGW here in Memphis keeps things relatively simple, but I've been burned by missing details in the past too. What I started doing is creating a checklist for each tariff type - every possible charge, credit, adjustment, and exception gets its own line item. Takes forever the first time, but now I can zip through audits much faster and I rarely miss anything.
Westar Energy burned me once on a demand charge calculation that had three different footnotes applying to the same line item depending on the season. Learned to create a flowchart for complex tariffs now. If there's more than two footnotes on a rate schedule, I map out every possible scenario before I touch the bills. Sounds paranoid but it works.