XPX Carbon/Resources
How to read your own bill, what data any credible proposal needs, and plain answers to the questions we get asked most.
Most people read only one line of it, while the savings usually sit in the others. Line names vary between states and utilities, but the structure below is common to most commercial and industrial tariffs.
Units consumed, multiplied by the tariff rate for your category. This is the line everyone looks at.
Reduced by consuming less, through efficiency, optimisation or generating your own power.
Billed against your highest recorded demand in a billing cycle, or against the capacity you have contracted for, whichever your tariff specifies. It is set by a short interval rather than by the month.
Reduced by peak shaving, demand control or rescheduling what starts together.
Applied when your power factor falls below the threshold in your tariff. Some utilities also pay an incentive above it.
It can be corrected in days, usually for less than what the penalty costs across a year.
Peak and off-peak multipliers applied to units consumed in specified blocks. Not every consumer category has them.
Reduced by shifting load, or by storage where the load cannot move.
A pass-through of the utility's own cost of generation, revised periodically. This line is outside your control.
Scales with every unit you consume, which is another reason consumption is the lever.
A percentage applied on top of the charges above, set by the state.
It falls automatically when the charges beneath it fall, which is an effect most savings calculations forget.
Charged when recorded demand exceeds your contracted capacity, often at a punitive multiple.
It is worth checking first, because it can indicate a contract demand that no longer matches the plant.
Every saving starts with knowing
which of these lines is the largest.
A proposal written without data is only an estimate. Here is exactly what each kind of project needs, and it is the same list whoever you ask.
Checklist 01 / 02
This is enough to size the equipment and check that your supply can carry it.
What to send
A menu, and the batch size you cook each item in
Three months of fuel spend, whether LPG, PNG or whatever the kitchen runs on
A kitchen layout, or photographs of each station
Sanctioned electrical load, and the existing distribution board rating
Your vessel inventory, noting what is already induction-compatible
Service timings, and the peak hour that decides the sizing
Send whatever you have. A partial set is still worth sending, and we will tell you what is missing rather than wait for it. Read about this solution.
Checklist 02 / 02
Twelve months of bills answers most of the question before anyone visits.
What to send
Twelve months of electricity bills, all pages
Sanctioned load, tariff category and connection voltage
A roof plan or drawing, or the usable area and roof type
Photographs showing shading from water tanks, towers and adjacent buildings
Transformer capacity and existing peak demand
Roof age and condition, and any waterproofing warranty still running
Send whatever you have. A partial set is still worth sending, and we will tell you what is missing rather than wait for it. Read about this solution.
Every proposal you receive will use these. Knowing them is most of what it takes to compare two quotes properly.
Kilowatt is a rate, meaning how hard something draws at a moment. Kilowatt-hour is a quantity, meaning that rate sustained for an hour. Bills charge for both, in different lines.
kVA is the total current your connection carries; kW is the part doing useful work. Power factor is the ratio between them. Below your tariff's threshold, you are penalised for the difference.
Kilowatt-peak: a solar plant's rated output under standard test conditions. Real generation is always lower, which is why yield per kWp matters more than the rating.
The highest average load recorded over a defined interval, usually fifteen or thirty minutes. It sets the demand charge for the whole cycle.
The capacity you have contracted with the utility. Exceeding it attracts a penalty; contracting far above your actual need means paying for headroom you never use.
Tariff blocks that price the same unit differently by hour. The spread between blocks is what makes load shifting and storage worth doing.
Net metering credits the surplus you export against the units you import. Gross metering pays for everything generated at a separate rate. Which applies is decided by state policy.
Buying power from a generator other than your utility, wheeled to you across the grid. Subject to wheeling charges, banking rules and cross-subsidy surcharge.
Capacity utilisation factor: actual generation as a percentage of what a plant would produce running flat out all year. It is the honest way to compare solar plants.
Total harmonic distortion: how far the current or voltage waveform departs from a clean sine wave. High distortion overheats equipment and trips breakers without an obvious cause.
The share of energy put into a battery that comes back out. Storage economics run on the spread minus this loss.
How much of a battery's capacity is used in a cycle. Usable capacity rather than nameplate capacity is the number that matters.
Coefficient of performance: units of heat delivered per unit of electricity consumed. A heat pump at COP 3.5 delivers three and a half times what it draws.
Open Charge Point Protocol: the standard that lets EV chargers from different manufacturers be managed by one back-end. It is worth insisting on.
Lithium iron phosphate: the battery chemistry used in most stationary storage, chosen for cycle life and thermal stability over energy density.
Payback is how long until the investment returns its cost. IRR accounts for what the money earns across the asset's whole life. Short paybacks can still be poor investments, and the reverse is also true.
Proving a saving occurred, by comparing consumption against an adjusted baseline rather than against last year's bill.
Emissions you produce directly, emissions from the energy you buy, and emissions across your value chain. Most commercial energy projects move Scope 2.
We answer them here the way we would answer them on a call.
It depends on two numbers: your electricity tariff and your fuel price. Induction delivers far more of its energy into the food than a burner does, so it wins on energy consumed. Whether that translates into a lower bill depends on the price of each unit where you are.
The arithmetic is straightforward once we have three months of fuel spend and your tariff, and if it does not work at your rates, we would rather tell you that.
It is not pointless, but the case is different. Solar only offsets consumption that happens while the sun is up. If most of your load runs after dark, a plant sized to your total consumption will export heavily at a rate you don't control.
You can either size it to your daytime load only, or pair it with storage. Both approaches are legitimate, and each has different numbers attached.
Sometimes. For emerging technologies, waiting is often correct, and we will say so. For established ones such as induction and solar, waiting mostly means paying the current bill for another year.
The useful test is whether the technology's cost curve has already crossed your operating cost. If it has, the delay is the expense.
If the honest answer is to wait,
that is the answer you will get.
Project case studies and technical notes are published here as work completes, with measured results rather than marketing claims. If there is something you would find useful, tell us and we will write it.
Share one electricity bill,
and we will show you which line to address first.