Monitoring System Used to Identify, Track and Allocate Peak Demand Costs

Abstract

In 1994, Thomson Consumer Electronics (RCA) purchased a UtiliTRACK® Monitoring System for a plant in Indianapolis, Indiana primarily to allow utility costs to be billed to individual departments within Thomson as well as to outside organizations leasing space on the site. The most common way to distribute monthly electric costs within a facility when consumption by area or department is available through submetering or other means, is to apply the average cost per KWH from the utility bill to the individual consumption figures. Thomson initially used the data from the UtiliTRACK System in this way. As the plant engineer worked with system data on a daily basis and began to develop a much better understanding of the plant's electrical profile, it was clear that the percentage contribution by department or area to the plant's peak demand was not the same as that assigned based solely upon consumption. With a monthly peak exceeding 8 MW and peak demand charges accounting for more than 60% of the monthly electric bill, he realized that to be accurate and fair, costs must be allocated based both on consumption and peak demand. He asked UtiliTRACK to develop a method for tracking and allocating peak demand costs. The resulting software continuously tracks the total plant demand (the sum of 3 utility meters) and records the contribution of each monitored point at the time the peak occurs. The resulting reports and graphs not only enable the owner to accurately allocate peak demand costs but also provide a means for tracking and managing peaks on a continuous basis.