Setting up business energy at a new premises

The utility goes first, and the supplier's clock starts after it

A new premises is not a customer until the delivery utility says it is. The utility or gas distributor owns the service connection, sets the meter and creates the account every other transaction hangs from, which is why the first task on an opening is a service request rather than a rate comparison. In Texas that account is the Electric Service Identifier, and the market documentation says where it comes from: ERCOT's Load Profiling Guide records that transmission and distribution service providers create and submit ESI IDs as new service delivery points are established. Oncor, which covers much of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, publishes the same fact as a sequence. Underground service installation must take place before a move-in request can be completed, and Oncor calls that request the final step in establishing power at a new location; the retail provider is the party that sends it, and activation happens on the date the customer and its provider agreed. City or county inspections can sit in front of energisation. The supplier leg is short by comparison: what takes months is the utility's own construction, and the published durations bear that out.

• The delivery utility or gas distributor creates the account; a supplier cannot enrol a premises that does not exist in the utility's system.
• ERCOT's Load Profiling Guide records that the TDSP creates and submits the ESI ID as each new service delivery point is established.
• Oncor's guidance calls the move-in request the final step in establishing power at a new location, and the retail provider sends it.
• City or county inspections can stand between a completed service order and energisation.
• Where a project needs an engineering study for system upgrades, National Grid's Massachusetts guide puts that study at four to six months before construction.
• Oncor targets ten business days for an underground service order, weekends and holidays excluded; Con Edison will not accept a move-in date more than thirty days ahead on an existing meter.

What the utility builds, and what it asks for before it builds

The work is more than one job. A line extension reaches the site with poles, conductors, transformers and trench; the service connection joins the building to what the utility already has, and the delivery tariff decides which side carries which part. Eversource's published sequence for new or upgraded commercial and industrial service in Massachusetts is the clearest checklist of the paperwork: create the work request; establish the customer of record with the utility for billing; for a customer new to that territory, pay a security deposit before the service is energised; pay a design deposit; provide an approved plot plan showing where the service enters; provide a one-line diagram showing voltage and the main switchgear; then review and execute the line extension agreement, which the utility describes as the document setting out the split of responsibility between the utility and the developer. Construction follows, and the utility states that work will not be scheduled until payment is received in full. Easements or public way rights can be needed, and on an underground service the developer supplies and installs the non-electrical civil works. Deposits sit inside that sequence, and they are a credit rule rather than a mood: Maryland's nonresidential deposit regulation caps what a utility may require at the maximum estimated charge for two consecutive billing periods, or ninety days, whichever is less; allows a larger deposit to be paid in instalments over at least eight weeks when the applicant asks, with the utility obliged to say so at the time the deposit is requested; and requires simple per annum interest from the date of receipt. Con Edison's start-service page shows the practice plainly: a commercial applicant needs a tax identification number and pays a deposit without one.

• A line extension reaches the site; the service connection joins the building to the utility's existing facilities, and the tariff splits responsibility.
• Eversource's sequence runs: work request, customer of record, security deposit for new customers, design deposit, plot plan, one-line diagram, executed line extension agreement, construction, energisation.
• The utility states plainly that work will not be scheduled until payment is received in full.
• Maryland caps a nonresidential deposit at the maximum estimated charge for two consecutive billing periods or ninety days, whichever is less.
• Under that rule a larger deposit may be paid in instalments over at least eight weeks on request, with simple interest from receipt at a rate derived annually from published rate data.
• The chapter governing a commercial account is usually separate from the one governing a household account, so ask which rule applies and when the deposit is refundable.

The first rate class is set from an estimate, and it can be corrected

A premises with no billing history has no measured demand, so the utility assigns a delivery class from what it does know: the service characteristics, the connected load, or an engineering estimate the applicant supplies. That class decides the shape of the delivery charges, including whether there is a demand component at all and where the threshold sits, so it is worth reading before the first supply quote arrives, because a supplier prices against the class it expects the account to hold. Class lines are drawn in units rather than settled by the bill. Peoples Gas, the Chicago distributor, draws one in therms: Rate 2 General Service covers commercial and industrial customers averaging 41,000 therms a month or less, and Rate 4 Large Volume Demand takes the accounts above that line. The correction route is the demand test or the accumulation of actual data, so the question to put to the utility when the account opens is which class the estimate implies, on what basis, and when the account can be reclassified. The estimate itself can be checked with arithmetic rather than faith: connected kilowatts times expected hours a day times days a month, divided by the load factor that equipment mix plausibly produces.

• With no history, the class comes from service characteristics, connected load or an engineering estimate, not from measured demand.
• Peoples Gas draws its commercial line in therms: Rate 2 General Service to an average of 41,000 therms a month, Rate 4 Large Volume Demand above it.
• Ask the utility which class the estimate implies, on what basis, and when a demand test or actual data can move the account.
• Estimate your own usage as connected kilowatts times hours a day times days a month, divided by an assumed load factor.
• The class shapes the delivery charges a supply quote is written against, so read it before comparing offers.

What a supplier prices when the meter has no history

A new meter has no consumption record, so nobody can price the account's own intervals yet. In Texas the substitute is built into the market: ERCOT's Load Profiling Guide describes how load profile identifiers are assigned to ESI IDs, including for new service delivery points, how ZIP codes map to weather zones, and how non-interval metered sites are treated differently from sites with a recorder. Outside ERCOT the stand-in is usually a class average or the utility's own estimate. Three routes follow. The account can accept an offer priced on the profile or class estimate, with the volume assumption written into the confirmation. It can take a short term, or an index product that passes the market through, until twelve months of its own data exist, then go to market on real intervals. Or it can hand the supplier a documented usage assumption, from the arithmetic above or from the previous occupant's disclosure if the premises was supplied before. What no supplier can do is enrol a site that has no account, because there is nothing to enrol. It is also the point to check eligibility, because competitive supply depends on the service address, the meter and the utility territory, and municipal utilities, cooperatives and some jurisdictions have no choice at all.

• ERCOT assigns load profile IDs to ESI IDs, including for new service delivery points, and maps ZIP codes to weather zones in the same guide.
• Non-interval metered sites and sites with a recorder are profiled differently, so similar loads can be estimated on different bases.
• Outside ERCOT the stand-in is typically a class average or the utility's own estimate.
• A short term or an index product defers the fixed-price decision until the site has produced twelve months of its own data.
• A documented usage assumption written onto the quote is what stops a profile estimate quietly becoming the contract's volume.
• Competitive supply depends on the service address, the meter and the utility territory; municipal utilities, cooperatives and some jurisdictions have none.

Gas is a second application, with a readiness test written into it

Gas arrives through its own process with its own conditions, and the conditions belong to the building rather than to the supplier. Enbridge Gas Ohio publishes the sequence for a new or converted business premises: the request goes in, the utility may need further forms or a site meeting, the project is planned and a service line agreement is signed, and only then is the site checked against a readiness list the utility publishes, which requires the property to be at least six inches from final grade with no further grade cutting to come, the electric service already energised, the walls up, and construction material, scaffolding and dumpsters removed. When the site passes, a contractor installs the service line, and the installation record the utility then requires depends on the building's internal gas line being stubbed out and pressure-tested. The internal piping, not the utility's work, is usually the schedule risk. On the billing side the account is classed by volume and by how it takes service: at Peoples Gas, Rate 2 General Service covers customers averaging 41,000 therms a month or less, Rate 4 takes the larger accounts, and customers either buy from the distributor as sales customers or from an alternate supplier as transportation customers under the Choices for You rider. That last distinction decides whether there is anything to shop for at all.

• Enbridge Gas Ohio requires a signed service line agreement before the site is checked for readiness.
• Its published readiness items include six inches of clearance from final grade, no further grade cutting, the electric service energised, walls up and construction material removed.
• The utility's installation record depends on the building's internal gas line being stubbed out and pressure-tested, which puts the internal piping on the critical path.
• At Peoples Gas, Rate 2 General Service takes accounts averaging 41,000 therms a month or less and Rate 4 Large Volume Demand takes the larger ones.
• Gas accounts either buy from the distributor as sales customers or from an alternate supplier as transportation customers under the Choices for You rider.

The move itself: what closes at the old address, and what does not travel

A business that already buys energy and is relocating has a second set of mechanics, and the mistake is assuming continuity. On the utility side the transition is a move-out at the old premises and a move-in at the new one, each tied to a meter reading. Con Edison accepts a move-in date no more than thirty days ahead, asks an existing account for both addresses and both dates, handles business accounts by telephone rather than online, and transfers the account name automatically where service is currently in the landlord's name. On the supply side the contract generally does not follow the customer. A supply agreement is written for a premises, so the old site is closed with a final read and a final bill while the new site needs its own account, its own enrolment and its own price, because a new premises has a different load shape and the load shape is what the price is built on. Where a supplier offers to serve the customer at the new address, treat it as a new contract for a new delivery point rather than a transfer, and read the old agreement for what closing it early costs. The work-backward order is: fix the energisation date, place the service request and pay what it requires, settle the meter and identifier, enrol supply, then check the first bill against the assumption the quote was written on.

• The utility transition is a move-out and a final read at the old premises, and a move-in at the new one.
• Con Edison accepts a move-in date no more than thirty days ahead and handles business accounts by telephone.
• A supply agreement is written for a premises and does not automatically travel with the customer to a new address.
• A new premises has a different load shape, so an offer for the new site is a new price even from the same supplier.
• Work backwards from the energisation date: service request, meter and identifier, supply enrolment, then a first-bill check against the quote's assumptions.

PUT THE OPTIONS SIDE BY SIDE

Your comparison checklist

Common questions