Load Shifting: When It Works, When It Won't

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1. 02 Mechanism What load shifting actually does

   Load shifting moves consumption from high-price periods to lower-price periods. It targets energy charges, the kilowatt-hour line, by taking advantage of time-of-use rate differentials. It does not reduce total consumption. It repositions it.

   Industrial

   Run processes off-peak

   Batch runs, pumping, non-time-critical production moved out of the peak window.

   Commercial

   Pre-cool early in the day

   Drop building temperature before peak pricing hits, then coast through the afternoon.

   Fleet

   Charge EVs overnight

   Push charging sessions into the cheapest hours of the tariff.

   Data

   Schedule non-critical jobs late

   Move data processing tasks to after peak windows close.

   A typical time-of-use day

   03 What it does to you The numbers on real deployments

   Peak Power Energy published two Toronto case studies from a facility activated in July of the Toronto case activation year. Same site, same BESS, two different strategies, two different outcomes on two different line items.

   Toronto case system

   500kW

   BESS power rating

   1,000kWh

   BESS energy capacity

   2,022

   Activation year

   One battery, run two different ways against two different charges on the bill.

   Toronto: baseline charges and savings captured

   That works out to just over 9% on the coincident peak line from load shifting, and just over 12% on the non-coincident line from peak shaving, on a single bill.

   Longer horizon: a manufacturing site in Kearny Mesa, San Diego has delivered approximately $554,000 in documented savings since a 1 MW / 4 MWh system came online in the Kearny Mesa activation year. Vendors like Seplos report demand charge reductions of 20% to 40% with paybacks of 3 years to 5 years in properly configured deployments.

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2. 04 The trap When load shifting is the wrong answer

   Here is where the pitch fails. Load shifting only works if the machines or systems in question are not mission-critical and can be operated at another time. For many industrial facilities, that is not the reality. HVAC that must follow occupancy. Continuous-process equipment. Production lines tied to shift schedules. If the machine has to run when it has to run, you cannot load shift it.

   The pitch	The operator reality
   Load shifting cuts every commercial bill	Only cuts the kWh line, and only if loads are movable
   Any facility can reschedule its loads	Continuous-process and occupancy-driven loads cannot be moved
   It reduces how much energy you use	It changes when you use it. Total consumption is roughly the same.
   Payback is universal	Payback lives or dies on your tariff, your interval data, and local incentives

   A vendor who leads with load shifting for a facility running continuous-process manufacturing is not doing you any favors. That pitch does not survive contact with your operational reality.

   05 Your leverage Combined strategy and vendor questions

   The combined strategy is real. A data center that runs battery storage to cover afternoon peak demand while scheduling non-critical computing workloads overnight is stacking both approaches. Peak shaving the demand charge and load shifting the kilowatt-hour cost simultaneously. If your operation has both flexible and inflexible loads, that is likely where you end up.

   The combined strategy for a mixed-load facility

   Battery systems can also generate revenue beyond direct bill savings by providing grid services back to the utility. It is worth asking any vendor whether that revenue stream is accessible on your rate and in your market, because it directly affects the payback math.

   1. 1 Pull your last twelve months of bills and calculate what share is demand versus energy.
   2. 2 List your highest-draw processes and mark each one as shiftable or locked. Be honest.
   3. 3 If shiftable loads are meaningful, price out scheduling and automation before you price hardware.
   4. 4 If the remaining peak is still driving the bill, ask a battery vendor to model against your interval data, not a benchmark.
   5. 5 Ask whether bidirectional discharge to the grid is available in your market and how much it adds to payback.
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3. 05 Your leverage Combined strategy and vendor questions

   The combined strategy is real. A data center that runs battery storage to cover afternoon peak demand while scheduling non-critical computing workloads overnight is stacking both approaches. Peak shaving the demand charge and load shifting the kilowatt-hour cost simultaneously. If your operation has both flexible and inflexible loads, that is likely where you end up.

   The combined strategy for a mixed-load facility

   Battery systems can also generate revenue beyond direct bill savings by providing grid services back to the utility. It is worth asking any vendor whether that revenue stream is accessible on your rate and in your market, because it directly affects the payback math.

   1. 1 Pull your last twelve months of bills and calculate what share is demand versus energy.
   2. 2 List your highest-draw processes and mark each one as shiftable or locked. Be honest.
   3. 3 If shiftable loads are meaningful, price out scheduling and automation before you price hardware.
   4. 4 If the remaining peak is still driving the bill, ask a battery vendor to model against your interval data, not a benchmark.
   5. 5 Ask whether bidirectional discharge to the grid is available in your market and how much it adds to payback.
   Decision matrix

   When load shifting is worth acting on

   ✓ Load shifting fits when

   • Your rate has meaningful time-of-use differentials between peak and off-peak
   • Energy charges (kWh) are a large share of your bill, not just demand charges
   • You have processes that can genuinely be rescheduled without hurting production
   • You have automation or scheduling systems in place, or the budget to add them
   • Your operation category shows up on the fit list: warehousing, water treatment, irrigation, EV charging

   ✗ Load shifting is the wrong tool when

   • Your loads are continuous-process and cannot be moved off shift
   • HVAC is tied to occupancy and cannot pre-cool or coast
   • Demand charges dominate your bill and the peak is driven by inflexible equipment
   • The vendor is presenting a generic payback that has not touched your interval data
   • Rescheduling would compromise safety, quality, or delivery commitments
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4. Decision matrix

   When load shifting is worth acting on

   ✓ Load shifting fits when

   • Your rate has meaningful time-of-use differentials between peak and off-peak
   • Energy charges (kWh) are a large share of your bill, not just demand charges
   • You have processes that can genuinely be rescheduled without hurting production
   • You have automation or scheduling systems in place, or the budget to add them
   • Your operation category shows up on the fit list: warehousing, water treatment, irrigation, EV charging

   ✗ Load shifting is the wrong tool when

   • Your loads are continuous-process and cannot be moved off shift
   • HVAC is tied to occupancy and cannot pre-cool or coast
   • Demand charges dominate your bill and the peak is driven by inflexible equipment
   • The vendor is presenting a generic payback that has not touched your interval data
   • Rescheduling would compromise safety, quality, or delivery commitments
   Questions for your morning huddle

   1. What percentage of our current electric bill is demand charges versus energy charges, and do we actually know that number?
   2. Which of our highest-draw processes can genuinely be rescheduled, and which are tied to production, occupancy, or safety?
   3. If we are evaluating a battery, has the vendor modeled both peak shaving and load shifting against our actual rate and interval data?
   4. Is bidirectional discharge to the grid available in our market, and how much does it change the payback story?
   The one thing to remember

   The question is never which strategy is better. The question is what your loads actually do. Load shifting is a real tool when your operations are flexible enough to use it, and it is the wrong tool entirely when they are not.

   Before you take another vendor call, split your top ten loads into two lists: shiftable and locked. If the shiftable list is thin, stop evaluating load shifting and start evaluating peak shaving. If it is meaningful, price scheduling before you price hardware.

   The Energy Decision Blueprint

   Know if the numbers actually pencil out before you sign anything.

   A written second opinion on the project in front of you, whether that is a rate change, new equipment, or a renewable installation.

   1. 01A short call, to figure out quickly whether we can actually be helpful. If we can't, we'll say so on the spot.
   2. 02We pull the data, your bills, your rate structure, vendor proposals, project specs.
   3. 03You get the verdict in writing: whether the payback will materialize, and the opportunities or risks nobody has raised.

   Get a Blueprint at blueprint.tac-nrg.com Free for Indiana-based operations spending five figures or more a month on electricity. No obligation. You keep the write-up either way.
   5

5. Before you take another vendor call, split your top ten loads into two lists: shiftable and locked. If the shiftable list is thin, stop evaluating load shifting and start evaluating peak shaving. If it is meaningful, price scheduling before you price hardware.

   The Energy Decision Blueprint

   Know if the numbers actually pencil out before you sign anything.

   A written second opinion on the project in front of you, whether that is a rate change, new equipment, or a renewable installation.

   1. 01A short call, to figure out quickly whether we can actually be helpful. If we can't, we'll say so on the spot.
   2. 02We pull the data, your bills, your rate structure, vendor proposals, project specs.
   3. 03You get the verdict in writing: whether the payback will materialize, and the opportunities or risks nobody has raised.

   Get a Blueprint at blueprint.tac-nrg.com Free for Indiana-based operations spending five figures or more a month on electricity. No obligation. You keep the write-up either way.
   Glossary

   Load shifting

   Moving electricity consumption from high-price periods to lower-price periods. Targets the kilowatt-hour line on the bill. Does not reduce total consumption.

   Peak shaving

   Using an alternative energy source, typically a battery, to reduce instantaneous power draw during peak windows. Targets the kilowatt line on the bill.

   Demand charge

   The portion of a commercial bill based on the highest instantaneous power draw recorded in any 15-minute interval during the billing cycle, measured in kilowatts.

   Energy charge

   The portion of the bill based on total consumption over the billing cycle, measured in kilowatt-hours.

   Time-of-use (TOU) pricing

   A rate structure that charges different prices for electricity depending on the hour of the day, creating the peak versus off-peak spread that load shifting exploits.

   Battery Energy Storage System (BESS)

   A facility-scale battery that charges during off-peak hours and discharges automatically when facility load approaches a preset threshold, used for peak shaving and rate arbitrage.

   Coincident peak

   The portion of a demand charge tied to the facility's draw at the same moment the grid or utility itself is peaking, often billed separately from non-coincident demand.

   Non-coincident peak

   A demand charge based on the facility's own highest recorded draw during the billing cycle, independent of when the wider grid peaks.

   Bidirectional battery

   A storage system capable of discharging back to the grid rather than only to the facility, creating a potential revenue stream from grid services on top of bill savings.

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