Business Electricity. KVA charges anyone?

Rinoa

My father has a flat in an extra care home. The housing association procure the utilities which are included in a service charge.

They have no idea what they are doing and I'm trying to help them out.

One issue is their KVA charges. Accoring to the URL below it should be possible to cut them.

http://www.bitc.org.uk/document.rm?id=7820

The care home has an available KVA capacity of 180, but their maximum demand each month is only 30.

Are there any savings to be made be reducing the capcity with the distributor?

Thanks.

Gurn_2

Yes, they have signed up to have 180kva available, and if there MD each month is only 30 then id suggest them getting that lowered straight away!
Anything over about 110kva is on half hourly billing etc, just ask for the meter (as it will be CT) to be reprogrammed to a single rate quarterly tariff and just pay for units rather then max dem etc.

Rinoa

Gurn wrote: »

Yes, they have signed up to have 180kva available, and if there MD each month is only 30 then id suggest them getting that lowered straight away!
Anything over about 110kva is on half hourly billing etc, just ask for the meter (as it will be CT) to be reprogrammed to a single rate quarterly tariff and just pay for units rather then max dem etc.

Thanks Gurn.

Yes, they are on half hourly billing.

They've just signed up for a new contract over 2 years at 7.2p kWh (after not having one for 3 years!) Will reprogramming the meter affect the contract?

Could you explain what CT is?

They currently pay around £182 monthly in KVA charges. If they reduce the capacity to say 40 KVA will this save them £140 each month?

Will they still have to have a half hourly meter and if they don't could this save them further charges?

Thanks.

Gurn_2

Rinoa wrote: »

Thanks Gurn.

Yes, they are on half hourly billing.

They've just signed up for a new contract over 2 years at 7.2p kWh (after not having one for 3 years!) Will reprogramming the meter affect the contract?

Could you explain what CT is?

They currently pay around £182 monthly in KVA charges. If they reduce the capacity to say 40 KVA will this save them £140 each month?

Will they still have to have a half hourly meter and if they don't could this save them further charges?

Thanks.

Well if they have signed a new contract for 2 years then i don't know if they can change this, or if there are any penalties for ending it early?

Im assuming the new price takes into account them signing up for 180kva?
If they go under 110ish kva then they are on monthly billing rather than half hourly, they will be billed on units and max demand for the month, if they go over what they sign up for then they get penalised for it.

Which is why id say, for the amount they are using, might be worth considering a quarterly tariff billed on just units used, afraid i don't know the ins and outs of tariffs, they need to discuss this with there supplier, but signing up for 180kva when they arent using it seems daft.

A CT meter doesnt have the load flowing through it like a normal whole current domestic meter does, because of the consumption, basically wrapped around the customers incoming tails there is a coil measuring the current flow in each cable and the output of the coil is a ratio of the primary, ie on a 200/5 CT, every 200 amps flowing through the coil will give 5amps to the meter, and then it reverses the equation to calculate usage.

A CT meter can be reprogrammed for different CT ratios, half hourly tariffs, non-half hourly tariffs, quarterly etc.

My advise would be speak to your supplier, tell them your MD is only 30kva, this is only about 126 amps? and discuss the options with them, but yes you are paying more than you need to as your availability is 180kva.

Rinoa

Thanks Gurn. That was very helpful.