Manage Your Electricity, Improve Your Bottom Line
Availability of reliable electricity is integral to the productivity of any company. Try doing without your computers for half an hour, let alone shut down your assembly line and you will quickly feel the impact.
Did you know that Canadian consumers paid over a period of 777 hours during 2006/2007 in excess of $1.6 Billion to generators for high priced electricity? And as a commercial or industrial client, you paid a majority of that cost.
Now ask yourself “Did my retailer make any attempts to inform me the price was high?” And why wouldn’t he? It is estimated that as little as a 10MW reduction might have been enough to keep $1 Billion dollars in the consumer's pocket.
Since July 2007, the price of energy in Alberta is corrected monthly; not quarterly. This price is based on the average cost of energy transacted through the System Operator the previous month. So any opportunity to cut your consumption this month means you will generally pay less next month. As a commercial or industrial consumer, we only need an estimated 12,000 commercial and industrial consumers to cut 25 kW for 15-30 minutes an average of 12 times per month. With well over 100,000 customers, that means you only need to participate 2-3 times each month. In fact, we can see that the most frequent times occur during the daytime between noon and 8 pm. The fact is that this time interval is not predictable as the frequency changes monthly. For this reason, installing timers rarely provide a sufficient means of reduction. That is why your response must be interactive.
The difference between you and a residential consumer is that it is probable you have a “Smart Meter” or “Interval Meter” that allows Retailers to charge you the HOURLY rate. That exposes you to even higher prices if your business operates during traditional business hours! Just because the price is high, does not necessarily mean supply is constrained. So you must be prepared to selectively reduce your load when you believe your profits as a business are severely constrained by rising operating costs.
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