New Jersey · New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU)

Auditing PSE&G commercial bills

A corridor across central and northern New Jersey, including Newark, Jersey City, Trenton, Camden and much of Bergen and Middlesex counties.

PSE&G is New Jersey's largest electric and gas utility. New Jersey has retail choice, so commercial customers either buy supply from a third-party supplier or take Basic Generation Service (BGS) from PSE&G, which the BPU procures through an annual auction. Smaller commercial accounts take fixed-price BGS, while larger accounts take hourly-priced BGS-CIEP. Delivery is billed under rate schedules set by voltage and size: General Lighting and Power (GLP) for secondary service, Large Power and Lighting (LPL) at secondary and primary voltage for larger loads, and High Tension Service (HTS) at subtransmission and high voltage. Because New Jersey sales tax applies to commercial utility service, tax treatment is part of every audit. Societal benefits, transition and other per-kWh charges appear on every bill. For multi-site operators, the frequent PSE&G findings are accounts on GLP that belong on LPL or the reverse, demand values that do not match interval data, and sales tax charged to exempt organizations.

Practice notes

Separate PSE&G delivery charges from supply charges before auditing. Delivery follows the GLP, LPL or HTS schedule, while supply follows either BGS terms or your third-party contract. Errors in each go to different parties, and a bill with consolidated supplier charges can make a supplier error look like a utility error.

Capacity and transmission obligations for larger accounts are set from the site's load during PJM peak hours and are carried for a year. A peak recorded during a meter fault, a fire alarm test or construction can be checked against interval data. Corrections are made with the utility or supplier that set the obligation.

New Jersey sales tax applies to commercial electricity and gas, with exemptions for qualifying organizations that file the required certificate. When a nonprofit or government site is billed tax because no certificate was on file, the fix is prospective, and past tax is recovered through a separate refund process that we prepare alongside the billing claim.

Back-billing and refunds

Billing corrections at PSE&G are governed by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities' rules and PSE&G's tariff for electric service. Those rules set how the utility adjusts bills after meter errors and billing mistakes and limit how far back it can bill a customer for undercharges. Overcharge refunds are calculated for the affected periods within the applicable limits. Disputes can be brought to the BPU's Division of Customer Assistance. We file each claim as soon as the error is documented so older periods remain recoverable.

Findings we see most often

Wrong rate schedule
Accounts left on GLP after demand moved above the LPL threshold, or on LPL after a load reduction.
Sales tax on exempt usage
New Jersey sales tax charged to exempt organizations or on qualifying exempt use where certificates were never filed.
Demand ratchet errors
Billed demand or capacity obligations that do not match interval data after a meter exchange.
Estimated reads never trued up
Estimated reads followed by true-ups that crossed a BGS price change.

Commercial schedules we check

Schedule	Applies to	What we check
GLPGeneral Lighting and Power Service	Commercial delivery service at secondary distribution voltage for accounts below the LPL threshold.	Check whether accounts with demand regularly above 150 kW should be on LPL-Secondary, and rebuild billed demand from interval data.
LPL-SLarge Power and Lighting Service, Secondary	Larger commercial accounts at secondary voltage whose billing demand exceeds 150 kW.	Test demand charges against interval data and confirm the supply side (BGS-CIEP or third-party supplier) is billed on the correct capacity obligation.
LPL-PLarge Power and Lighting Service, Primary	Larger commercial and industrial accounts served at primary distribution voltage.	Confirm the service is metered at primary voltage and that any loss adjustment matches the metering point.
HTS-HVHigh Tension Service, High Voltage	Large industrial and institutional accounts served at high voltage.	Verify the voltage level, demand charges and power factor provisions against the service agreement and interval data.

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

PSE&G questions

Basic Generation Service, Commercial and Industrial Energy Pricing, is PSE&G's hourly-priced default supply for larger commercial accounts that have not chosen a third-party supplier.

Yes. We compare supplier charges with your contract, including capacity and transmission pass-throughs.

Yes. We audit gas accounts against PSE&G's gas tariff.

Audit your PSE&G 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