A few things to keep in mind

After the initial damage assessment and once you’ve restored everything to what resembles normalcy, you will likely have a number of questions about your electricity service and contract. Obviously, the first priority is to make sure that you have all the help you need to get your business up and running and to make sure all is well in your families, your community, and among your colleagues and staff. But after the initial assessments are complete, and problems are addressed, there will be some practical concerns about how to handle your electricity contracts.

What to look for from your supplier:

• Grace period on paying invoices. You should expect utilities and electricity suppliers to waive late fees and/or to be very lenient about applying late fees during this crisis. It is very difficult to maintain business-as-usual, and your suppliers will acknowledge that fact.
• Bandwidth clauses. For those of you on a fixed price, you have a bandwidth clause in your contract. The bandwidth clause allows the supplier to charge you for usage outside a (usually) 10% band around your historical usage. That clause protects the supplier against buying power that you don’t use, and that they have to sell back in to the wholesale market at a loss.Again, this may seem obvious, but make sure that your supplier does not charge you (or penalize you in any way) for power  that you haven’t used due to storm-related outages.

What to look for from your utility:

• Usage. Everyone who has been out of power will see a consumption drop for that period, of course. Be aware of your usage following restoration of power. When some of our customers got power restored after 9/11/01, they noticed anomalous usage patterns that persisted for months and required laborious efforts to resolve. Make sure that you keep an eye on your usage: compare it to prior periods (this time last year and the last full 30 days of consumption); verify that the usage looks accurate and that your meter is functioning properly.

Here’s a link to an interesting article about smart meters and power restoration “Smart Meters Help Utility Speed Sandy Restoration” by Martin LaMonica on MIT Technology Review. Admittedly, PEPCO was not the hardest hit utility– but the ability to pinpoint restoration efforts seems powerful.

Let us know if you have any other storm-related questions. We are here to help.