In the News
New York City Businesses to be Billed for Actual Electrical UsageCommercial Property News
By Peggy Bresnick Kendler, Contributing Editor
March 07, 2006
Effective March 31, businesses in New York City will see a change in the way electricity bills are calculated and assessed. This change, to be instituted by Con Edison Inc. at the prompting of strategic energy asset management firm, ConsumerPowerline, is designed to make energy bills more equitable and truly reflect the amount of energy used.
Customers that will benefit from this change include large commercial buildings that have 24-hour usage patterns, businesses with significant overnight activity, three-shift industrial facilities and hotels with room occupancy-based building management systems.
Approximately 20 percent of an electricity users' annual bills is determined in the one hour of one day that the electricity system peaks in overall usage. That reading determines each customer's load exposure and sets an "installed capacity tag" for the year. Actual usage is individually metered to determine the exact and correct assessment of the installed capacity tag for only the largest electricity customers that more than 1,500 kilowatts at peak. Customers using less than 1,500 kilowatts were lumped together and assigned a generic installed capacity tag based on facility type and size, forcing efficient users to pay more on their annual electric bill than those that were not as energy-efficient.
The Con Edison rule change means that all electricity consumers with peak loads from 50 to 1,500 kilowatts will also be billed based on their true installed capacity tag. Customers that may pay more include certain large commercial buildings with a predominately nine-to-five workforce; daytime, single shift industrial facilities and family-oriented residential facilities with no energy management system.
"Certain buildings are absolutely going to pay more for electricity; others are absolutely going to pay less," Mike Gordon, ConsumerPowerline's founder & president told CPN this morning. "And depending on what type of tenant base or commercial base you've got in the building, you'd better be prepared to be on the correct plan in either case."