If your business uses more than 10,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh), you have a line item on your bill called Demand Charges. Customers on the CG2 rate have this demand charge and are billed separately for demand and for total energy usage to better reflect the costs of providing service.

Basic Billing Concepts
Energy is the amount of electricity used (kWh). Demand is the electric power needed at any given moment (kilowatts or kW) to run equipment, lights, etc. Each is billed separately.

Understanding the Energy Charge
Your energy charge is calculated by multiplying your kWh of use by the price per kilowatt-hour.



Each of these ten light bulbs uses 100 watts of electricity. If all ten are lit for one hour, they will have used one kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity.

10 light bulbs x 100 watts x one hour = 1,000 watt-hours (one kWh)

Understanding the Demand Charge
Demand is the rate at which you consume electricity, or the amount of electricity needed to power your business at any given time.

The demand charge is the price we charge per kW (not kilowatt hour -- that's consumption) for the greatest amount of electric power supplied to you between the on-peak hours of 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. weekdays. Your demand charge is determined by your highest peak demand of electricity during an on-peak 15-minute interval during your billing period. You can reduce demand charges by shifting some use to off-peak hours.

Energy Use Profile (sample)
This chart illustrates the difference between energy and demand: