California · California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC)

Auditing SCE commercial bills

Central, coastal and Southern California outside the City of Los Angeles and San Diego, including Orange County, the Inland Empire and much of the San Joaquin Valley.

SCE delivers electricity to a large commercial and industrial base across Southern California. Its business schedules are organized by demand: TOU-GS-1 for small accounts, TOU-GS-2 and TOU-GS-3 for medium accounts, and TOU-8 for large ones, with rate options inside each schedule that change how energy and demand are priced. As with PG&E, many SCE customers buy generation from a community choice aggregator such as Clean Power Alliance, and SCE bills delivery and non-bypassable charges. The on-peak period for the current time-of-use schedules runs 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., and summer and winter seasons carry different period definitions. For multi-site operators, the issues we see most at SCE are accounts that moved between demand bands without a schedule change, rate options that no longer fit the site's load shape, facilities-related demand charges billed on incorrect demand values, and estimated reads after meter or network problems.

Practice notes

SCE schedules carry several rate options, and SCE generally limits how often a customer can switch. Before recommending a change, we model each option with twelve months of interval data and confirm the account's eligibility under the current tariff, so a rate change request does not lock a site into a worse option for a year.

Facilities-related demand at SCE is based on the highest demand in the billing period regardless of time. A single motor start or a test of backup equipment can set it. When a spike looks abnormal, we compare it with interval data and maintenance logs, because a demand value recorded during a meter fault can be challenged.

For CCA customers, check the generation portion against the CCA's own rate sheet and the delivery portion against SCE's tariff. Claims for each go to the party that issued the charge. SCE's billing statement shows both, which makes the bill easy to misread as a single set of SCE charges.

Back-billing and refunds

SCE's Rule 17 governs adjustments of bills. CPUC decisions interpreting the rule describe a catchall provision limiting billing adjustments not otherwise covered by the tariffs, for an undercharge or an overcharge, to three years. In practice, that means overcharge refunds for a documented billing error can reach back up to three years, and for no longer than the error lasted. For undercharges, SCE has applied shorter limits to residential and small business customers in specific cases. File as soon as the error is documented, because the three-year window keeps moving.

Findings we see most often

Wrong rate schedule
Accounts that grew past 200 kW or 500 kW but stayed on TOU-GS-2 or TOU-GS-3, or a rate option that no longer suits the site's load shape.
TOU period misapplication
Summer on-peak hours applied to winter days, or holidays billed as weekdays.
Power factor penalties
Power factor adjustments on larger services where reactive demand was recorded with the wrong multiplier.
Estimated reads never trued up
Edison SmartConnect meters that stopped reporting and produced estimated bills for several cycles.

Commercial schedules we check

Schedule	Applies to	What we check
TOU-GS-1Time-of-Use General Service, Small	Small business accounts with monthly demand below 20 kW.	Confirm the account has stayed under the demand threshold and compare the available rate options against twelve months of interval data.
TOU-GS-2Time-of-Use General Service, Demand Metered	Business accounts with monthly demand from 20 kW up to 200 kW.	Rebuild facilities-related demand from interval data and check that the rate option billed is the one on file with SCE.
TOU-GS-3Time-of-Use General Service, Demand Metered	Business accounts with monthly demand from 200 kW up to 500 kW.	Test both facilities-related and time-related demand charges against interval data, and check power factor adjustments where reactive metering is installed.
TOU-8Time-of-Use General Service, Large	Large commercial and industrial accounts with demand above 500 kW, served at secondary, primary or subtransmission voltage.	Confirm the voltage level billed matches the service, and check peak-period demand and energy charges for the 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. summer weekday window against interval data.

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

SCE questions

CPUC decisions interpreting SCE Rule 17 describe a three-year limit on billing adjustments not otherwise covered by the tariffs. Refunds are limited to the period the error actually lasted.

Yes. Under your letter of authorization, we submit the rate change request after confirming eligibility and the expected savings with interval data.

Yes. We audit the CCA generation charges against the CCA's published rates and file any claim with the CCA.

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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