Identify, Eliminate and Prevent Costly Data Quality Issues
Streetlight billing records often have error rates that grow worse over time. They are the source of lost revenue for some organizations – AND – the cause of over-billing for others. With TerraGo StreetlightOps, we can automate and reconcile billing records to eliminate both, and make sure accuracy is maintained going forward.
For Utilities, inaccurate streetlighting inventory records increase maintenance costs, generate customer billing errors, and in many cases are the source of lost revenue (e.g., FLFE’s (Free Lights For Everyone) – poles that are in service but not on billing records). With improved streetlighting records, utilities can lower maintenance costs, recover lost revenue, improve community relations, meet energy savings requirements, and provide a value-added service to increase customer satisfaction.
Streetlights are the highest cost component of a city’s energy bill, accounting for as much as 50% of the annual energy budget. Cities pay a flat rate for unmetered streetlighting, which varies depending on the lamp wattage and type, fixture style, type of pole, and ownership. Yet, these energy bills are based on streetlight inventory records that have error rates as high as 30% or more. Even smaller municipalities are in position to save millions of dollars by identifying errors and uncovering past and ongoing overpayments. This allows data-driven negotiation with utilities that achieve substantial refunds, billing credits and future savings.
From inaccurate records (wrong rate charged due to wattage recordation error, etc.) to incorrect boundaries (lights/poles that belong to an adjacent city or county) to phantom poles (poles that are still being billed but have been taken out of service), identifying common errors can deliver massive savings. But the time and expense of massive physical surveys and financial consultants often derail reconciliation efforts before they begin. Let TerraGo show you how we can automate analytics that deliver savings.
Organizations that have undertaken billing reconciliation programs can tell you how great the results were. And probably that they have no way from preventing the past billing data issues from happening again and getting worse over time. With TerraGo StreetlightOps, you can maintain ongoing data reconciliation between the utility inventory and the municipality billing records, so everyone pays their fair share, and nothing more.