Summary:
OpenSolar provides a variety of options to tailor the customer’s electricity usage so their proposal is as accurate as possible. Below is the step-by-step guide on how to customize the customer's electricity usage.
Table of Contents:
Shaping Electricity Usage Profile
Scaling Weekday to Weekend Usage
This video will take you through modeling electricity usage
Selecting Electricity Usage:
To enter or edit the usage information for your customer you can click on the project you will be working on. From there, select the energy tab as shown below:
At the top, the Electricity Usage section will allow you to set the usage for the customer. Use the drop-down under the data source field to select the type of data you want to enter.
OpenSolar provides a range of different options to input your customer's electricity usage depending on the available data at hand. Below are a list of options we provide:
| Data Source[a] | Description |
| OpenSolar Usage EstimatesIf you don't have the customer's electricity usage or bill, you can choose one of OpenSolar's usage estimations for the project location. | |
| Default | OpenSolar provides an estimate for the average usage in selected locations (Same as Estimate (Medium)) |
| Estimate (Low) | OpenSolar provides an estimate that is below the average usage in selected locations. |
| Estimate (Medium) | OpenSolar provides an estimate for the average usage in selected locations. |
| Estimate (High) | OpenSolar provides an estimate that is above the average usage in selected locations. |
| Enter kWh UsageIf you have your customers' electricity usage information, you can choose one of the below options to set the usage. | |
| Daily Consumption kWh | Enter up to 12 monthly average daily kWh values. Months with missing values are interpolated by OpenSolar. |
| Monthly Consumption kWh | Enter up to 12 monthly kWh usage values. Months with missing values are interpolated by OpenSolar. |
| Quarterly Consumption kWh | Enter up to 4 quarterly kWh usage values. Quarters with missing values are interpolated by OpenSolar. |
| Annual Consumption kWh | Enter single kWh annual usage. |
| Hourly Interval | Enter the kWH usage values in 15, 30, or 60-minute intervals. See this article for more information: How to Upload Interval Data |
| Enter Electricity BillIf you have your customer's electricity bill and have set your customer's electricity tariff (Please read this article on how to create custom tariff rates), OpenSolar can automatically calculate their total usage. | |
| Annual Bill | Enter a single annual bill. OpenSolar will attempt to interpolate the total usage based on the annual bill value and electricity tariff set. |
| Quarterly Bills | Enter quarterly bills. OpenSolar will attempt to interpolate the usage based on the quarterly bills provided and the electricity tariff set. Quarters with missing values are interpolated by OpenSolar. |
| Monthly Bills | Enter up to 12 monthly bills. OpenSolar will attempt to interpolate the usage based on the monthly bills provided and the electricity tariff set. Months with missing values are interpolated by OpenSolar. |
| Bi-monthly bill | Enter the bill for 2 months at a time. OpenSolar will attempt to interpolate the usage based on the monthly bills provided and the electricity tariff set. Months with missing values are interpolated by OpenSolar. |
Shaping Electricity Usage Profile:
Note: This is NOT required if you entered in Hourly Interval data.
Once you have inputted data to the electricity usage section, you have a few additional settings that allow you to shape the electricity profiles to better match your customer's electricity usage behavior.
Shaping Weekday & Weekend Daily Energy Profiles:
Note: Setting the Weekday & Weekend curves will impact your customer's electricity bill if they are on a TOU tariff. It will also impact the total amount of self-consumption from your PV system design.
You can shape what the typical daily usage profiles are like for your customers by expanding the "advanced settings" option. From there toggle on the "Configure Usage Profile Curves" option.
You can use the weekday usage curve drop-down to make the section for the weekday and the weekend usage curve to make a different selection for the weekend. The graph on the right-hand side will update to display the selected option.
Note: If this section is not customized, the system will default to Evening Peak.
OpenSolar offers a range of different Energy Profile shapes that you can select from. Below is a graphical illustration of these options:
Scaling Weekday to Weekend Usage:
You also have the ability to scale the Weekend energy usage relative to the weekday usage. If, for example, 10% more energy is used on the weekend, you can enter 1.1 in this box. If 50% more energy, 1.5.
Setting Demand using 8760 values:
If the demand is not set, OpenSolar assumes that the hourly usage profile is the same as your customer's maximum hourly demand. In almost all cases, your customer's maximum demand will be greater than the hourly usage profile, and setting the demand will be important for demand charge calculations. You can upload kWH usage values in 15, 30, or 60-minute intervals. See this article for more information: How to Upload Interval Data
Setting Controlled Loads:
If any controlled loads are implemented in the household (such as a water heater), you can enter this information by expanding the "Advance settings" and toggling on the "Set control loads" option:
From there, can enter the daily usage (in kWh) of up to 3 in each of the boxes labeled Controlled Load 1/2/3 Daily Usage. Currently, controlled load usage by default is distributed between 12AM - 5AM.
After you have made your changes to this section, ensure that you click the button.
Comments
3 comments
I wonder if anyone agrees that there might be a benefit to having multiple electricity usage options that can then be selected in the Design tab
e.g.
- option 1 - solar system 8kWp - electricity usage 7kWh per day
- option 2 - solar system 5kWp - electricity usage 3kWh per day
I know there is a use case for my company but I don't know if others agree :)
Hi Tosin,
Thanks for reaching out.
Unfortunately, this is not possible on OpenSolar. I will need to submit this as an enhancement for the Product Team to review.
The current workaround suggested would be created different projects instead of system options to simulate different electricity usage.
Cheers,
Sam
I would like to be able to set the time frame and days of the week that the controlled load runs.
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