Three common billing errors that quietly cost businesses money, and where to look for them.
Most businesses treat their energy bill like a fact of life. The final amount shows up, gets paid, and gets set aside until next month. But utility billing is complicated enough that errors are common, and they rarely announce themselves. Nobody calls to say "by the way, you're on the wrong rate class." You just keep paying for it.
Here are three things worth checking on your own bill; what they are, why they happen, and how to spot
them.
1. Wrong Global Adjustment rate class
In Ontario, most commercial/industrial businesses are billed under one of two structures, Class A or Class B, and which one you're on has a real effect on your bill.
Here's the official breakdown, per IESO: if your average monthly peak demand is above 5 MW, you're automatically Class A. If it's between 1-5 MW, or between 500 kW-1 MW in certain manufacturing-related sectors, you're eligible to opt in to Class A, but it's optional, not automatic.
Why this matters: Class A pricing is based on your demand during five system-wide peak hours a year, while Class B is based on your regular monthly consumption. Depending on your usage pattern, one can be significantly cheaper than the other. Businesses near the eligibility threshold - especially ones that have grown or shrunk since they were first classified - are the most likely to be sitting on the wrong one.
How to check: Look at your bill for "Class A" or "Class B" (or "ICI" - Industrial Conservation Initiative, the program that governs Class A). If you're near the demand thresholds above and haven't reviewed your classification in a while, it's worth finding out how you would have fared on Class A. Don't expect your utility to tell you: it's unlikely to give an opinion on whether you should switch. The answer comes from an in-depth
calculation of how your bills would have looked under Class A, done by a specialist you hire or by your own team if you have the resources.
2. Power factor penalties
Power factor measures how efficiently your electrical load actually uses the power supplied to it. Most utilities expect a power factor at or above 0.90 (90%); if it's lower - usually caused by heavy use of motors or other inductive equipment - you can be penalized on your bill, often by having your billed demand calculated as higher than your actual demand.
Why this matters: this penalty is one of the easiest charges to miss, because it doesn't show up as a clearly labeled line item, it's baked into how your demand charge gets calculated. A facility running at a 0.80 power factor instead of 0.90 can end up paying demand charges on significantly more capacity than it actually used.
How to check: Look for “power factor,” “PF,” or “kVA” on your bill. If your power factor is listed below 0.90, you may be paying a penalty. Your bill won’t spell out what that penalty costs you over a year, or whether a power factor correction would be justified. Working that out takes a closer look at your bills and equipment. For many facilities, it does pay for itself, often within a year or two
2. Power factor penalties
Power factor measures how efficiently your electrical load actually uses the power supplied to it. Most utilities expect a power factor at or above 0.90 (90%); if it's lower - usually caused by heavy use of motors or other inductive equipment - you can be penalized on your bill, often by having your billed demand calculated as higher than your actual demand.
Why this matters: this penalty is one of the easiest charges to miss, because it doesn't show up as a clearly labeled line item, it's baked into how your demand charge gets calculated. A facility running at a 0.80 power factor instead of 0.90 can end up paying demand charges on significantly more capacity than it actually used.
How to check: Look for “power factor,” “PF,” or “kVA” on your bill. If your power factor is listed below 0.90, you may be paying a penalty. Your bill won’t spell out what that penalty costs you over a year, or whether a power factor correction would be justified. Working that out takes a closer look at your bills and equipment. For many facilities, it does pay for itself, often within a year or two.
3. Misapplied tariffs
Utility rate structures change more often than most people realize - new tariff schedules, new riders (extra charges or credits utilities add on top of the base rate, usually temporary, like a line item recovering the cost of a specific program), updated Global Adjustment rates. If your account isn't updated when a rate changes, you can end up billed under an outdated or simply incorrect tariff.
Why this matters: unlike a one-time billing mistake, a misapplied tariff repeats every single month until someone catches it.
How to check: Compare your bill's rate structure against your utility's current, published tariff schedule (usually available on the utility's own website, filed with the Ontario Energy Board). If the numbers don't line up, or if you're not sure what to compare against, that's a reasonable thing to ask your utility to walk through directly.
The problem with checking this yourself
None of this is impossible to do manually, but it takes real effort to track tariff updates, recalculate power factor penalties, and monitor demand thresholds every month, for every account, especially if you operate more than one facility. That's exactly the kind of checking that's easy to mean to do but never quite get to.
That's the gap Askiy is built to close. Verifying every bill against the actual tariff automatically, so errors like these get caught the month they happen instead of quietly repeating over time.
See how Askiy flags extra charges on your bills.
