Commercial electricity for salons, laundries, car washes and other service businesses

A broad opening-hours plateau, made rougher by individual machines. A laundry, a salon and a car wash each draw differently, so this is only the outline of a trading day.

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 salons, laundries, car washes and other service businesses, 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.

The survey puts businesses such as repair shops and garages, dry cleaners and laundromats, car washes, salons and barber shops, copy centres and post offices in one category. The range mixes quite different businesses, so treat it as an outline rather than a benchmark.

Survey 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

• Heating, cooling and ventilation
• Water heating
• Washers, dryers and pressing equipment where electric
• Pumps, blowers and vacuums in a car wash
• Lighting and signage
• Compressors and other shop equipment

The trap this industry falls into

The businesses in this group differ widely, and what decides the bill is the equipment list and when it runs, not the floor area. A machine or two starting together at opening can set the demand reading, and on schedules where demand billing begins at a threshold, one added piece of equipment can move the account onto a different schedule.

What to actually do

1. Find out which rate schedule the account is on and whether it bills demand
2. Stagger the start of dryers, pumps, blowers and water heating at opening
3. Check water heater recovery times and thermostat settings against the hours of use
4. Check lighting and sign timers
5. Before adding equipment, look at where the schedule changes at a demand or usage threshold

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 salons, laundries, car washes and other service businesses 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
• An equipment list with ratings and whether each item is electric or fuel-fired
• Hours of operation by day
• Whether the account is billed for demand
• Whether water heating is electric

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.