Most of our continuing education is about tariffs as they exist. Very little is about how they change, which is where a surprising amount of audit value sits.
A concrete example of why it matters. On a set of accounts I follow, a new charge appeared in a single billing cycle — a system benefit charge stated in cents per kilowatt of billed demand, where previously that charge had only ever been assessed per kilowatt-hour. It landed on every account simultaneously. Over the same period the energy-based version of the same charge fell substantially.
That is not a billing error. That is a recovery restructure, moving cost from an energy basis to a demand basis, and it was authorized somewhere before it ever appeared on a bill.
The point is that the order authorizing it is public, it was filed months before the first bill, and it was searchable. Anybody watching the docket knew it was coming. Everybody else found out when a client asked what the new line was.
Practical suggestions. Learn your state commission document system and how to search it by company and case. Learn the difference between the filed tariff leaf and the utility marketing page, because only one of them is authoritative. And when a new line item appears, your first move should be the docket, not the customer service line.
A concrete example of why it matters. On a set of accounts I follow, a new charge appeared in a single billing cycle — a system benefit charge stated in cents per kilowatt of billed demand, where previously that charge had only ever been assessed per kilowatt-hour. It landed on every account simultaneously. Over the same period the energy-based version of the same charge fell substantially.
That is not a billing error. That is a recovery restructure, moving cost from an energy basis to a demand basis, and it was authorized somewhere before it ever appeared on a bill.
The point is that the order authorizing it is public, it was filed months before the first bill, and it was searchable. Anybody watching the docket knew it was coming. Everybody else found out when a client asked what the new line was.
Practical suggestions. Learn your state commission document system and how to search it by company and case. Learn the difference between the filed tariff leaf and the utility marketing page, because only one of them is authoritative. And when a new line item appears, your first move should be the docket, not the customer service line.