Cost Avoidance for Deregulated Electric or Gas Accounts With Separate Bills
In some regions or localities, electric and gas accounts are deregulated – they are ‘customer choice’ accounts. In most cases, a Local Distribution Company (LDC) delivers and meters the energy and sends the customer one bill while a separate supplier (also called the retailer, marketer, generator or producer) sells the commodity and also sends a bill.
Because BOTH bills are necessary for accurate calculation of Cost Avoidance, the EnergyCAP software has special processes and logic for handling this type of deregulated scenario, which usually involves two separate accounts in EnergyCAP where each account is associated with the same meter.
For information about setting up deregulated accounts, see Deregulated (LDC/Supplier) and Summary Account Setup.
A deregulated meter in EnergyCAP is typically associated with two accounts:
- Distribution account (LDC- local distribution company)
- Supply account (supply/generation)
The scenario with separate Distribution and Supply bills requires special cost avoidance processing. When accounts have been set up properly in EnergyCAP, the Distribution (LDC) bill contains 100% of the demand and usage, while the supply bill has no demand or usage, just cost. This prevents double-counting of usage in reports and PowerViews. The Cost Avoidance Processor uses the LDC bill’s usage, demand and cost, and then adds in the supply bill cost in order to calculate a total cost and average unit cost.
In order to calculate cost avoidance, both bills (Distribution and Supply) for the billing period must have been received. Otherwise, the average unit cost cannot be accurately calculated. The Savings window in the Cost Avoidance Manager indicates deregulated meters with a distinctive icon (see image below), and EnergyCAP does not calculate cost avoidance for a deregulated meter until both bills have been received for each billing period.
When cost avoidance cannot be processed due to a missing bill (usually due to a delay in receiving the supply bill), an asterisk is shown in the Cost Avoidance column for that month. Click on the asterisk to view a popup window with detailed billing information regarding the account status for that meter for that billing period.
NOTE: Meter assignments for an account can be viewed and managed from the Account Properties – Meters tab. (If a meter is no longer assigned to an account, it can be unassigned on this tab in order to allow the Cost Avoidance Processor to continue without “waiting” for the entry of a bill for that account-meter combination.)
Beginning with EnergyCAP Release 6.1, the Savings Details ... window includes an AUC (Average Unit Cost) Details tab. Click the tab to view information on how both Supply and Distribution bills were used to generate the Average Unit Cost for that meter.
