ETB Monitor Saves Customer $17,000 by Using Green Button Connect My Data Integration and Electric Bill Calculations to Prove Billing Discrepancies by Local Utility

THE CHALLENGE

Bright Spot Solar, a California-based renewable energy project developer, encountered a significant challenge upon receiving complaints from a key customer. The customer, a beauty product manufacturer, reported that despite its solar and battery system being commissioned, they weren't experiencing the expected savings. Additionally, the electric bill calculations provided by ETB Monitor didn't align with the bills received from the utility provider.

THE SOLUTION

To address this challenge, Energy Toolbase (ETB) worked with Bright Spot Solar to enroll their customer in ETB Monitor's Connect My Data program. This feature facilitates the automatic retrieval of utility usage interval data directly from supported utilities on a rolling basis. It then overlays the usage as measured by the ETB meter with the usage reported by the utility to identify deviations in reported usage.

Through this analysis, it became evident that there were significant inconsistencies in the data reported by the utility meter. ETB Monitor's Connect My Data feature enabled the operations teams to retroactively identify these disparities over the course of a full year, as well as continue to monitor for new deviations.

Upon closer examination, the discrepancies were found to be linked to issues on the utility meter, resulting in the utility meter losing data and inaccurately backfilling lost data based on estimated historical usage. This erroneous estimation not only reported increased energy usage at the site but also led to the manufacturing of a new peak demands.

Energy Toolbase and Bright Spot Solar took decisive action by submitting the identified disparities to the utility provider. This submission highlighted the measured power and billed deviations, ultimately resulting in the customer receiving a refund of over $17,000 for billing overages.

CONCLUSION 

By leveraging ETB Monitor's Connect My Data feature, ETB and Bright Spot Solar were able to work together to identify and rectify discrepancies in utility billing, ensure accurate billing, and save the customer significant financial losses. This case underscores the importance of robust monitoring and analytics tools in optimizing the performance and financial outcomes of renewable energy projects. For more info, see ourpost detailing ETB Monitor's Connect My Data feature. 

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