Best find I have had in this sector and it came from the most boring possible step.
Facility expanded in 2022, upgraded from 800A to 2,000A service, new CTs installed. I was doing a
routine year over year consumption comparison and the post-upgrade months showed consumption up 34
percent while connected load per the electrical drawings was up about 21 percent.
That gap bothered me enough to pull the meter data and compare register readings against billed kWh.
Billed multiplier is 400. Based on the CT ratio in the field, verified by photograph of the CT
nameplates, it should be 320.
So every kWh and every kW since the upgrade has been overstated by 25 percent.
Twenty-six months. My calculation of the overbilling is 218,000 and change, and that number is going
to move because the demand ratchet compounds it.
The lesson is that I almost skipped the YoY step because the expansion made a consumption increase
obviously expected. Expected is not the same as proportionate. Check the magnitude even when the
direction makes sense.
Facility expanded in 2022, upgraded from 800A to 2,000A service, new CTs installed. I was doing a
routine year over year consumption comparison and the post-upgrade months showed consumption up 34
percent while connected load per the electrical drawings was up about 21 percent.
That gap bothered me enough to pull the meter data and compare register readings against billed kWh.
Billed multiplier is 400. Based on the CT ratio in the field, verified by photograph of the CT
nameplates, it should be 320.
So every kWh and every kW since the upgrade has been overstated by 25 percent.
Twenty-six months. My calculation of the overbilling is 218,000 and change, and that number is going
to move because the demand ratchet compounds it.
The lesson is that I almost skipped the YoY step because the expansion made a consumption increase
obviously expected. Expected is not the same as proportionate. Check the magnitude even when the
direction makes sense.