North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky · State commissions for each operating company, including the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) and the Public Service Commission of South Carolina

Auditing Duke Energy commercial bills

Six states through operating companies including Duke Energy Carolinas, Duke Energy Progress, Duke Energy Florida, Duke Energy Indiana, Duke Energy Ohio and Duke Energy Kentucky.

Duke Energy is one of the largest US electric holding companies, and it bills commercial customers through separate operating companies, each with its own tariff and state regulator. A retailer with stores across the Carolinas can have accounts at both Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress, under different schedule names and rules, even though the bills carry the same logo. The schedules below are from Duke Energy Carolinas in North Carolina, where many multi-site operators concentrate. Small accounts take Schedule SGS, larger demand-metered accounts take Schedule LGS, and Schedule OPT-V offers a time-of-use alternative for customers who can shift load. Duke's larger schedules use billing demand provisions that can carry a prior peak forward into later months, and they include power factor provisions for low power factor loads. For multi-site operators, schedule fit, demand ratchets and power factor adjustments account for most Duke findings, followed by sites still billing after closure.

Practice notes

Identify the operating company for every Duke account before auditing it. Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress overlap geographically in the Carolinas but have separate tariffs, and a schedule name at one company does not mean the same thing at the other. We tag each account with its operating company and state so the right tariff and rules apply.

Track ratchets across twelve months, not one. A single summer peak can set billing demand for many later months. When the peak was caused by a one-time event, such as a chiller failure or a construction load, the site still pays, but a recalculation error in the ratchet release is recoverable and common after meter exchanges.

Check power factor before and after capacitor maintenance. A site that installed correction capacitors and then let them fail will see power factor adjustments return. That is not a billing error, but a power factor adjustment calculated on the wrong multiplier or reactive reading is, and interval data with kVAR readings will show the difference.

Back-billing and refunds

Each Duke Energy operating company follows the billing adjustment rules of its state commission and its own service regulations. Those rules limit how far back the utility can bill for undercharges and set how overcharges caused by meter or billing errors are refunded, and the periods differ by state. Because a multi-state portfolio can fall under four or five different sets of rules, we apply the limit for each account's state and file claims early so older months do not age out.

Findings we see most often

Demand ratchet errors
Billing demand held at a prior peak after the ratchet period ended, or a peak set during equipment testing carried forward.
Power factor penalties
Power factor adjustments applied to sites whose correction capacitors failed, or calculated with the wrong reactive multiplier.
Wrong rate schedule
Sites left on LGS after load fell, or on OPT-V when their load shape favors LGS.
Closed and vacant site billing
Minimum bills and customer charges continuing at closed locations.

Commercial schedules we check

Schedule	Applies to	What we check
SGSSmall General Service (Duke Energy Carolinas, NC)	Nonresidential accounts with demand at or below 75 kW.	Check whether accounts moved to LGS after a few high-demand months have dropped back below the threshold long enough to return to SGS.
LGSLarge General Service (Duke Energy Carolinas, NC)	Nonresidential accounts with demand above 75 kW.	Rebuild billing demand month by month, including any ratchet from prior peaks, and confirm the ratchet released when the tariff says it should.
OPT-VOptional Power Service, Time of Use (Duke Energy Carolinas, NC)	Larger commercial and industrial accounts that elect time-of-use pricing with on-peak demand charges.	Test on-peak demand and energy periods against interval data and check whether the site would pay less on LGS.
IIndustrial Service (Duke Energy Carolinas, NC)	Manufacturing and other industrial accounts that meet the tariff's industrial classification.	Confirm the industrial classification still applies after a change in site use, and check sales tax treatment of electricity used in manufacturing.

Schedule names and eligibility summarized from the utility's published tariff. The utility's current tariff book governs.

Duke Energy questions

Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress are separate operating companies with separate tariffs in each state.

A correctly applied ratchet is part of the tariff. We recover overcharges when the ratchet was calculated or released incorrectly, and we flag sites where a schedule change would reduce ratchet exposure.

Yes. They follow Duke Energy Florida's tariff and Florida Public Service Commission rules.

Audit your Duke Energy accounts.

Connect bills for up to 50 meters. Get the findings report in about three weeks. Pay nothing unless money comes back.

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from bill access to first findings report: 21 daysfrom bill access to first findings report
of filed claims accepted by the utility in full or in part: 94%of filed claims accepted by the utility in full or in part