Saving Money by Reducing your MIC

Recent changes to ESB Networks policy have enabled schools to make significant savings on their bi-monthly electricity bills.

The MIC (Maximum Import Capacity) of a school’s electricity connection is a measure of the electricity capacity that ESB Networks have agreed to provide to that school. The school is charged a flat daily rate for each kVA unit allowed for in their MIC. For some schools the MIC may be set higher than is actually required. In many schools the introduction of energy saving measures has reduced the maximum demand within the building.

In most schools the MIC can be significantly reduced resulting in large savings in the school’s running costs. For example with the ESB Maximum Demand Low Voltage Tariff the cost is currently €0.0734/kVA/day. As a guideline it is suggested that the MIC should be set at 5% above your highest electrical load in the past year.

The Commission for Energy Regulation has recently approved a modification to ESB Networks’ charges for Maximum Import Capacity (MIC) reductions. In summary, a three year moratorium (commencing 08 February 2010 and ending 31 December 2012) will be introduced. This means that some customers will not be charged for MIC reductions during this period, subject to a number of conditions.

For full details, please click on the link below: http://www.cer.ie/en/electricity-distribution-network-current-consultations.aspx?article=a16bac14-5d4f-4afe-a795-088999b8b15e&mode=author

For further information, please contact ESB Networks in the first instance or alternatively the Commission for Energy Regulation, The Exchange, Belgard Square North, Tallaght, Dublin 24 | Tel: 01 4000 800 | Fax: 01 4000 850 |info@cer.ie

 Potential Savings

In the example of a school where the MIC is currently set at 60kVA and the highest electrical load in the previous year was 30kVA the MIC could be reduced to 33kVA with the following saving:

60kVA – 33kVA = reduction of 27 kVA

27 kVA x 365 days x €26.34/kVA/year = saving of € 711.18/year

In order to gauge the potential saving that can be achieved, each school should analyse a full year of electricity consumption bills. Each bill contains the current MIC level and the maximum demand that was reached in this billing period. If this information is not on file it should be obtainable from your utility provider or through online monitoring accounts (such as ESB EnergyExtra) which give up to 2 years of historical data. Each school should also check their own rates as each utility provider differs slightly in their charges.

Potential Costs

Please be aware that there is a penalty for exceeding your MIC of €13.40 per kVA per 2-month period (based on ESB Low Voltage Max Demand Non-Quarter Hourly Tariff).

For instance if the MIC is reduced to 50 but at one point in the 2-month billing period the highest electrical demand is 55kVA then an excess capacity charge of €67 will be added to the bill for that period.

Carefully analysing the bills before suitably reducing the MIC and maintaining existing energy saving measures within the school as suggested above should prevent this excess capacity charge from being levied upon the school.

Changing your MIC

Once the bills have been analysed and the new MIC has been decided the school should fill out an NC3 form located on the ESB networks website

http://www.esb.ie/esbnetworks/en/business-customers/mic/index.jsp