Foothills County — Energy Consulting
Your Foothills Ranch Might Be Peaking in February. That Changes Everything.
Or it might not — it depends on your rate class, your demand profile, and how your services are structured. But if it is, a solar system sized to your annual usage may barely touch your bill. That's the kind of thing you only find by reading the bills.
Ranching Loads Don't Behave Like Grain Loads.
Here's what's certain: on Fortis Rate 21 and Rate 22, your demand charge is set by your single highest fifteen-minute draw in the billing period. Not your total consumption. That's how the tariff works.
What's uncertain is when your operation hits that peak.
A grain farm east of here usually sets it at harvest — aeration and drying running hard through September. A cow-calf operation may set it in the opposite season, when heated waterers, calving barn heat, and block heaters stack into the same February weeks. Equestrian operations with arena lighting may look different again.
Which pattern you're actually on depends on your herd size, how your services are split, what's on each meter, and which rate class each one sits on. We've seen operations that assumed one and were living the other.
If You're Winter-Peaking, the Solar Math May Not Work the Way You Were Told.
What's certain: solar produces least in December, January, and February. Short days, low angle, snow load.
What follows from that is conditional. If your peak is set in those months, a system sized to your annual kilowatt-hours may cut consumption meaningfully and still leave the delivery side of your bill largely intact — because the charge driving that side is anchored to a winter number panels can't reach.
If your peak lands in summer, the same system might perform exactly as quoted.
Both are real outcomes. We've seen both. The difference between them is worth thousands of dollars a year, and nobody can tell you which one you're in without twelve months of bills and a look at your rate structure.
That's the entire argument for auditing first. Not that solar is wrong — that guessing is expensive.
Most Ranches Here Have More Than One Meter.
A quarter section with a house, a shop, a barn, and a well on separate services can carry four sets of delivery charges, four administration fees, and four riders — sometimes on different rate classes.
Whether that's costing you depends on how those services are structured and what each one is actually rated. Sometimes consolidating or reclassifying is worth real money with no equipment at all. Sometimes the arrangement is already correct. It's readable from the bills either way.
Who This Is For
Operations We Serve in Foothills County
Cow-calf and mixed cattle operations
Feedlots and backgrounding yards
Equestrian facilities around Millarville and Priddis
Irrigated and dryland crop east toward Blackie and Cayley
Acreages with shop, barn, and well loads
Commercial and light industrial through the Aldersyde and De Winton corridor
The Assessment
What We Actually Look At
Your bills
Twelve months, line by line. Delivery charges, riders, retailer rate, administration fees, and which rate class you're on. We check whether you're on the right one.
Your loads
Panel and circuit inventory, motors, compressors, refrigeration, heating, irrigation. What's drawing power, when, and how much.
Your lighting
Fixture count, type, wattage, and hours of operation. This is usually where the fastest payback hides.
Your infrastructure
Transformer capacity, service voltage, and main breaker size. This determines what's even possible before anyone talks about equipment.
The Process
Four Steps, No Pressure
Send us your bills
Twelve months if you have them. We can pull them from your retailer if you don't.
We analyze
Rate class, demand profile, load breakdown, lighting inventory.
You get a written findings report
Where the money is going, what it would cost to change it, and what the payback looks like on each option.
You decide
Do the work with us, take the report to another contractor, or do nothing. It's yours either way.
Why Independent
We’d Rather Tell You No Than Sell You Something.
We’ve told operations that solar didn’t pencil out on their rate class. We’ve told others that lighting alone would get them most of the savings for a fraction of the cost. We’ve told a few that the fastest win was switching retailers.
That’s the job. The assessment is how we earn the right to recommend anything at all — and if the numbers don’t support a project, you’ll hear that instead.
Service Area
Towns We Serve in Foothills County
Start With the Numbers.
The assessment is free and there’s no obligation attached to it. Worst case, you find out you’re already running efficiently — and that’s worth knowing too.
Get a Free Energy Assessment