Industry
Commercial electricity for medical and dental offices
Steady weekday load with imaging and sterilisation equipment creating short peaks.
Medical and dental offices typically run a low to moderate load factor, which means demand charges and rate schedule fit usually matter more than the supply rate. Steady weekday load with imaging and sterilisation equipment creating short peaks.
Weekday clinical hours with a lunchtime dip. Imaging and sterilisation create short spikes on an otherwise moderate profile.
Illustrative shape, not measured data. It shows the pattern this kind of operation tends to follow, which is why its bill behaves the way it does. Your real profile comes from your own interval data, and it is the only version that can produce a number.
What the federal building survey says
In 2018 the U.S. Energy Information Administration surveyed 6,436 commercial buildings and recorded the electricity each used. These are the surveyed buildings that match medical and dental offices, in kWh per square foot per year. Each is a whole building classed by what fills the most of it, so a single tenant space inside a larger building can use more or less.
Medical, dental or outpatient clinic
12.7kWh per sq ft a year, median
The middle half of surveyed buildings used 7.6 to 19.7. Nearly all fell between 4.0 and 27.3.
A typical one is 5,500 sq ft. At the median that is about 69,575 kWh a year, roughly $870 a month at the US average commercial price.
257 surveyed buildings Solid
Estimate your buildingSurvey year 2018, so this is the usage pattern, not a forecast. Prices here are today's: the US average commercial price for the 12 months to the latest EIA month. The cost estimator does the same for your own floor area and state.
What drives the load
- HVAC with tight comfort tolerance
- Imaging equipment
- Sterilisation and autoclave
- Vacuum and compressor systems
- Lighting
The trap this industry falls into
Practices frequently occupy suites whose electrical service was sized for a prior tenant, on a rate schedule inherited with the space and never reviewed against the practice’s actual load.
What to actually do
- Review rate schedule fit against actual demand rather than connected load
- Check HVAC scheduling against genuine operating hours
- Confirm imaging equipment standby behaviour
- Verify the account is not still billed under a prior tenant’s classification
Which half of the bill to attack
A commercial bill splits into supply, which a competitive supplier can price where a competitive market exists, and delivery, demand, fixed charges and riders, which stay regulated whichever supplier you use. Load factor decides which half is worth your attention, and for medical and dental offices the answer is usually clear.
At a low to moderate load factor, the peak is doing disproportionate damage relative to total consumption. Demand charges and rate schedule fit therefore usually matter more than the supply rate, and an operator who switches supplier to chase a lower supply price has left the growing part of the bill untouched.
This is also why a supply quote alone is a misleading answer for this industry. It is priced against the half of the bill that is not the problem.
The mechanics behind this: load factor, demand charges and rate schedule fit.
What we need to give you a real answer
- 12 months of bills
- Operating hours and days
- Major equipment inventory
- Suite square footage
The item that most often turns a vague conversation into a specific finding is twelve months of peak kW. A single bill shows what you paid; twelve months of demand readings show the shape that caused it, and the shape is where the recoverable money is.
Send one recent bill. We compute the supply, delivery and demand split for your account and tell you which of the levers above is actually worth your time.