Jeff from Santa Clarita. Started focusing on cold storage and food distribution clients six months ago and the rate class error rate is higher than anything I have encountered in other industries. Three of my first four cold storage clients were on the wrong rate class. Anyone else finding the same thing in this niche?
Cold storage / refrigeration — highest error rate I've seen
Marc from Bakersfield. Absolutely. The refrigeration load profile is very distinctive — high demand, long operating hours, relatively flat usage curve — and it often qualifies for interruptible or industrial rates that small warehouse operators have never heard of.
Marc, what is the most common error you find specifically?
Wrong demand tier. The refrigeration equipment creates a high connected load at startup — compressors cycling on together — that puts the facility in a demand tier it does not stay in. Utilities sometimes use that peak to classify the account at a higher tier than the sustained operating load would justify.
Gina from Hartford. I found a cold storage client on a general commercial rate who should have been on a refrigerated warehouse rate that the utility had filed specifically for that use case. The utility had never proactively notified anyone about it.
That targeted rate scenario is exactly what I keep finding. These specialized rate schedules exist but nobody tells the customers.
Marc again. The other big issue in cold storage is power factor correction. Bad power factor drives up demand charges and most cold storage operators have no idea what power factor is. Pointing it out does not generate a refund but it does generate goodwill and sometimes leads to a capital improvement project where they hire you for follow-on work.
Gina again. Also check whether the facility qualifies for agricultural or food processing rates if they do any value-added processing on site. Those eligibility criteria are surprisingly broad in some states.
This thread has been more useful than six months of reading tariff schedules on my own. Thank you both.