Case Study: How One Facility Cut $21,870/Month in Electric Bills
The results
- $21,870 per month in electric bill reductions.
- 25% reduction of the total monthly electric bill.
- $1.31 million projected savings over five years.
- Zero capital investment. Zero production changes.
A commercial food processing facility partnered with DataWrangler to address rising electric costs. Twelve months later, monthly bills were down $21,870, a 25% reduction, with no capital spending and no changes to production output. Projected five-year savings exceed $1.31 million.
Here is what changed, how the analysis worked, and how the savings landed.
The Starting Point
The facility ran multi-shift production of food products, with significant refrigeration, thermal processing, and packaging line loads. Monthly electric bills averaged around $87,000. The finance team treated the bill as a fixed operating cost. The facility team assumed the demand charge was a function of equipment size and could not be reduced without capital investment.
Both assumptions were wrong. A full bill audit and interval-level data review surfaced four distinct areas of overpayment.
What the Audit Found
Peak demand set by coincident equipment startups. Interval data showed that the monthly demand peak was consistently occurring during a five-minute window when three production lines ramped up together at the start of second shift. The peak was 200 to 300 kW above the facility’s average operating draw. The fix: staggered startup sequence, five minutes apart, eliminating the coincident spike.
Rate class no longer aligned to operations. The facility had expanded output over several years but was still billed on a rate class assigned when demand was lower. Modeling the bill on the appropriate industrial rate showed a materially lower total. The fix: formal rate class change filed with the utility.
Power factor penalty. The facility had a low power factor from a mix of older compressors and unbalanced motor loads. The utility was applying a penalty every month. The fix: capacitor banks sized to correct power factor to above the utility’s threshold.
Historical billing errors. The bill audit surfaced two misapplied riders that had been on the account for over eighteen months. The utility issued refunds for the overcharge period. The fix: documented dispute filing with refund credited to the account.
How the Savings Broke Down
The $21,870 monthly reduction came from four sources, in rough proportion to their individual impact.
Peak demand reduction from operational sequencing produced the single largest saving, cutting the demand charge by an amount that varied month to month but averaged roughly 60% of the total monthly reduction. Rate class change contributed a steady 20 to 25% of monthly savings. Power factor correction cleared the penalty and slightly reduced billed demand, adding another 10 to 15%. The remaining balance came from ongoing tariff optimization and rider verification.
$21,870 per month. Zero production disruption. Zero capital spent.
What the Facility Actually Did
From the facility team’s perspective, the operational change was minimal. Shift startup instructions now stagger three production lines five minutes apart. The maintenance team installed capacitor banks over a weekend. The finance team receives a monthly performance report from DataWrangler showing the previous month’s peak interval, why it landed there, and what to watch for in the coming month.
Production output did not change. Shift schedules did not change. The number of employees did not change. Nothing about the customer-facing business changed. The only thing that changed was how the facility interacts with its utility.
The Five-Year Projection
Annualized, the monthly savings total $262,440. Over a five-year horizon, and factoring in continued optimization opportunities as tariffs evolve and operations shift, the projected savings exceed $1.31 million.
$262,440 per year, from operational sequencing and tariff optimization. No capital investment required.
Food processor case results
The math on this kind of engagement is straightforward. When a facility is paying tens of thousands of dollars per month for electricity, and 40 to 70% of that bill is demand-driven, and the demand is set by fifteen-minute intervals no one is watching, the savings opportunity is almost always substantial. The only question is whether anyone is doing the analysis.
What This Case Shows
Every commercial and industrial electric bill contains structural savings opportunities that get missed because no one is trained to find them. Demand charges are treated as fixed. Rate classes are assumed correct. Power factor penalties get paid quietly. Billing errors persist. The scale of the resulting overpayment varies by facility, but the pattern is consistent.
The food processor above is one of many facilities where a structured audit and monthly interval-level review produced meaningful savings without capital investment or operational disruption. It is how DataWrangler cuts 10 to 25% off commercial and industrial electric bills across food processing, cold storage, and manufacturing operations.
See What Your Facility Could Save
The analysis starts with twelve months of bills and interval data if available. If not, we install the metering and pull the data ourselves. Either way the first quantified savings estimate typically comes back within a few weeks.
Upload your bill for a free analysis or see the full commercial and industrial platform.
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