What we check on every SCE commercial bill

SCE places commercial accounts on a schedule by maximum demand, and the tariff says when an account must move. Accounts drift: a tenant leaves, a chiller is replaced, solar goes in. The schedule doesn’t always follow.

What we check

• Your monthly demand history against the 3-of-12-month and 12-consecutive-month transfer rules
• Service voltage vs. the voltage level you’re billed at (missing voltage discounts)
• Options applied that you aren’t eligible for, such as Critical Peak Pricing on a standby or CCA account
• Legacy (grandfathered) rate options past their eligibility window
• Credits SCE should apply on its own, such as the single-phase credit

On TOU-GS-2, TOU-GS-3 and TOU-8, SCE offers Option D, Option E and Critical Peak Pricing variants. Option D has higher demand charges and lower energy charges. Option E flips that: far lower demand charges, much higher summer on-peak energy prices. Which one wins depends on your load shape, and the answer can change when you add solar or a battery.

What we check

• Every option you’re eligible for, shadow-billed month by month on your own 15-minute interval data
• Critical Peak Pricing: SCE defaults eligible customers onto CPP each October, with event pricing on 12 to 15 days a year. It isn’t right for every building.
• Storage-specific options, such as TOU-8 Option E for sites with qualifying solar or storage
• How the answer holds up with load growth or planned solar or storage

Solar interconnected in SCE territory since April 2023 is generally billed under the Net Billing Tariff, often called NEM-3. Exports earn credits priced hour by hour, not at the retail rate. It’s the part of the bill where errors are hardest to spot, and where we go deepest.

What we check

• Export credit vintage. For qualifying interconnection requests, the export-credit price schedule is locked for nine years from permission to operate. We confirm the right vintage was used and that the lock wasn’t dropped.
• Credit application. Export credits may offset energy charges only, not demand, fixed or non-bypassable charges. We check they were netted correctly, in both directions.
• Non-bypassable charges on every imported kWh, interval by interval
• Annual true-up and treatment of leftover credits
• Legacy NEM sites: not moved to NBT before their 20-year transition ends, and system changes kept within the allowed limits
• Paired storage: estimation-method forfeits, and whether dedicated storage metering would pay off

On SCE demand-metered schedules, demand is billed on the highest 15-minute average kW, in two parts: facilities-related demand (the highest interval at any time in the billing period) and time-related demand (the highest interval within each peak period, such as summer weekdays 4–9 p.m.). Both come straight from interval data, which makes them some of the most checkable numbers on the bill.

What we check

• Billed kW vs. the highest interval in SCE’s own meter data
• Time-related demand set by an interval outside the peak window, on a weekend or on a holiday
• Billing periods that span a season change, or run outside SCE’s normal 27–33 day window
• Critical Peak Pricing event charges and non-event credits computed on the right kW and kWh
• Any demand billed above the period’s interval maximum

A battery earns its demand savings only if it’s discharging at the exact interval that sets each demand charge. One missed interval can erase a month of shaving. We line up your battery’s telemetry with SCE’s interval data, peak by peak.

What we look for

• Battery empty before the peak arrived
• Idle or in the wrong mode, or a setpoint too high to shave anything
• Charging created the peak. Facilities-related demand counts at any time of day, so grid charging can set it.
• Events beyond capacity, where a bigger battery wouldn’t help but a different setting might
• CPP event performance: full and discharging during 4–9 p.m. events
• Rate interaction: whether better dispatch changes the best rate option, plus storage-specific options and standby exemptions

The classic audit findings, checked systematically on every bill.

• Estimated reads, especially estimated demand, never corrected by a later actual read
• Billed usage that doesn’t reconcile with interval data, including patterns typical of meter multiplier errors
• Duplicate or overlapping billing periods and duplicate customer charges
• Double generation charges after a switch to or from a CCA
• Idle accounts still paying customer charges, and meter or equipment charges you no longer need
• Late fees caused by SCE billing delays

Sites with on-site generation can be billed a Capacity Reservation Charge under SCE’s Schedule S. The tariff exempts several common cases, and the standby demand the charge is based on comes from a multi-year formula that’s worth re-running.

• Load normally served by NEM- or NBT-eligible solar, which is exempt
• Non-export solar up to 1 MW, and storage on qualifying rate options
• Standby demand recomputed with the tariff’s formula
• Charge rate matched to your rate option

Utility users tax depends on exactly where the meter is: which city, or unincorporated county. We check jurisdiction, rate and exemptions on every account.

• Tax billed for the wrong jurisdiction (for example, county tax on a site inside a city, or the reverse)
• Exemptions that should be on file but aren’t
• State energy surcharge calculated correctly

On TOU-GS-3 and TOU-8, SCE charges per kVAR of maximum reactive demand. We trend your implied power factor, flag sudden jumps after meter changes and estimate the payback of capacitors or inverter settings.