OpenSolar has an extensive tariff database, but there may be utility departments or specific rates that are not in the database yet. If there is a tariff you would like to model with that is not in the database, feel free to create a Help Center ticket with the tariff details attached, and the support team will add it for you. You are also able to learn to create the tariff yourself by watching this video, or read up on all the tariff rate settings below.
Navigating to Create Your Utility Tariff Rates
In order to create a new tariff, go to the Control section of the app, and then go to Other > Utility Tariffs on the left-side bar.
From here you can search through all of the existing tariffs in our database, or to create your own tariff rate you can go to the top right hand corner and click on "Add Utility Tariff".
Tariff Rate Fields
Once you've created a name for the utility tariff and saved, you can add edit all of the tariff information. Description of each Utility Tariff field is shown in the table below:
Field | Description |
Mandatory Fields |
|
Bill Frequency |
The periodic interval in which a customer is billed for their electricity usage. There are 3 options:
|
Solar Compensation Mechanism |
The mechanism in which solar energy is compensated. There are currently 3 different solar compensation mechanism:
|
Optional Fields (That you should set if you have the data for it) | |
Sector |
Refers to the customer type that is served by this tariff (e.g. Residential or Commercial). If not selected, will default to Unspecified. |
Country |
The country in which the utility tariff is offered. |
Utility |
The company that offers the utility tariff plan. May also be known as the energy supplier/retailer. |
Distributor |
The electricity distributor (or grid operator) that serves the area where the utility tariff is offered. Sometimes the Distributor is the same as the Utility |
Minimum Charge (Set this only if it is applicable) |
A minimum amount that must be paid on that utility rate. This field has units $/day, however some minimum charges are the same as the billing frequency (i.e. monthly, quarterly, ..). In a case like that, convert the minimum charge amount to $/day amount. Note that this is NOT THE SAME as the fixed charge on a utility rate. You can set fixed charges under Discounts & Surcharges. |
Optional Fields | |
Valid From/Valid To |
The dates in which the tariff is applicable. |
Is Latest |
Whether the tariff is the latest version. |
Popularity |
The higher the popularity, the more likely it will be the default tariff selected when creating a new project. If the popularity of a tariff is set to 100, it will always be the default tariff for all projects created. |
Description |
Description that can be provided about the tariff. |
Transition To Tariff |
The tariff that the customer will be transferred to after solar is installed. |
Note: When creating a new project, OpenSolar will automatically select the tariff based on the country, service area of the distributor, the sector of that project (e.g. Commercial vs Residential), and the popularity. If the popularity of a custom tariff is set to 100, OpenSolar will always default to that tariff for all new projects.
Solar Compensation Mechanism
There are 6 Different Solar Compensation Mechanisms:
Solar Compensation Mechanism | Description |
Net Billing |
|
Net Billing with Credit Carryover |
|
Net Energy Metering (NEM) |
|
Buy All, Sell All |
|
Netherlands Net Metering Phase Out in 2031 (Netherlands ONLY) |
|
HECO Customer Grid Supply (Hawaii ONLY) |
|
How to Create Tariff Bill Charges?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Important Note:
A new bill charge should be created for each Usage Rate line item that applies to an entire time-period. For example:
- Flat Rates
- Tiered or Blocked Rates
- Time-of-Use (TOU) or Time-of-Day (TOD) Rates
You should NOT be creating multiple charges under a single Bill Charge by clicking on since you should ONLY be adding multiple rates to a Bill Charge if it is a Time-of-Use (TOU) rate.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In order to create a new item, click on the button next to Bill Charges. Then click on the new item to expand the menu.
Under the heading Type, you can click on the type of charge you would like to define. You can chose one of four items:
Bill Charge Type | Description |
Usage Rate ($/kWh) | Charge based on energy consumed. |
Demand Rate ($/kW) |
Demand charge based off peak electricity usage (hourly-interval). Note that we don't currently support calculating the demand charges based off maximum reactive demand. So this is equivalent to assuming the power factor to be 1. You can workaround this by setting the maximum demand in the Energy Page to be equal to the reactive demand for each month of the year. We also don't current support demand ratchet. |
Export Rate ($/kWh) | Credit given for excess generation exported to the grid. Only applies for rate where the Solar Compensation Mechanism is NOT set to Net Energy Metering (NEM). |
Controlled load ($/kWh) |
Charge based on energy consumed by control load applications which are separately metered to other usages (Note these are added in the Project Page). |
These items can be configured to be Flat, Block or Time Of Use (TOU) rates, and this applies to all rate types as listed above.
Note: Below we will illustrate how to create a Flat, Block, or Time Of Use (TOU) rates using a Usage Charge. However the same rate structures can be created for all other rate types.
Creating a Flat Rate
A flat rate (also known as a single rate) is a charge that applies to all time-periods of the tariff.
To create a Flat Rate:
- Create a bill charge by clicking
next to Bill Charges and set the Type it to be a Usage Rate ($/kWh). Since the usage item is not tiered, you DO NOT need to set the Block Period and just leave it as default.
- Create a rate by clicking
- Set a Rate Name and Price
The example below, shows a flat usage rate with a charge of $0.27/kWh:
![]() |
Note:For flat rates, no schedule needs to be set, as the rate is automatically assigned to all time periods.
Creating a Block Rate
A Block Rate is based on incremental usage prices. For a given Block Period (the cycle before the tiering of the charge resets), the Price per kWh will vary based on which Limit (kWh) has been exceeded.
To create a block rate:
- Create a bill charge by clicking
next to Bill Charges and set the Type it to be a Usage Rate ($/kWh).
- Next set the appropriate Block Period. There are two options (Daily = resets the tiers every new day, or Default = resets tiers at every new bill, or same as the bill cycle/frequency).
- Click on
to add another block (also known as tier).
- Set the Price and Limit for each block (Ensuring that the Limit for the last block is empty).
- If there are different rates based on season or weekend/weekday, you can enable the Schedule, which allows you to assign the different Rates to different times of the year. Otherwise, you don't need to enable Schedule. You can check out how to assign a schedule in the Time Of Use (TOU) Segment of this article below.
Note: Do NOT put a limit on the last block as any usage that is past that limit will have no rate assigned to it, and hence be charged at $0/kWh.
Creating Time Of Use (TOU) Rate
A Time-of-Use (TOU) rate is a rate that has different charges based on the time of day.
In order to add TOU Rates:
- Create a bill charge by clicking
next to Bill Charges and set the Type it to be a Usage Rate ($/kWh).
- Then click on
to add the number of different rates for each Time of Use period. (e.g. Create 3 separate rates for a TOU with Peak, Off-peak and Shoulder Rates).
- After setting the name and price of each rate, you will need to set the time period in which these rates are applied.
- First, click
and then select the time frame in which the corresponding rate gets applied on the schedule matrix.
- Once the time frame is selected (indicated by the greened out cells), click
next to the rate being assigned.
- Repeat steps for all other TOU rates.
- Ensure that both weekday and weekend schedules are assigned.
![]() |
How to Create Fixed Charges?
Fixed rates are charged to the customer regardless of how much energy they consume. You can easily identify fixed charges by the units of the charge. For example if the charge units is:
- $/month
- $/day
- $/quarter
- $/year
- $/bill
To create a fixed charge, you will need to follow the steps below:
- Click on
next to Discounts & Surcharges to add a new Discount/Surcharge.
- Click on the drop down underneath Type to choose the time scale (i.e. $/day, month, quarter, year)
- Enter in a Discount as a negative number and Surcharge as a positive number.
So the example shown below will result in the bill having a surcharge of $1 per day.
Extra Fields
Extra Fields contains various parameters that you can set for a tariff rate. These include:
Extra Field | Description |
Discount Usage Charges |
Sets a discount percentage on all usage charges in the tariff rate |
Discount Supply Charges |
Sets a discount percentage on all Surcharges (i.e. Fixed Charges) in the tariff rate. |
Discount Demand Charges | Sets a discount percentage on all Demand Charges in the tariff rate. |
Tax (%) |
Sets the tax amount on prices set for the various different charges in the tariff rate. It contains two fields:
|
Minimum Annual Export Credit |
Sets the minimum amount of export credit that can be received on that tariff rate. If the total annual export credits does not exceed the minimum amount set, then the customer will be compensated for the difference. This is generally offered as an incentive to join some energy program. It contains two fields:
|
PV Capacity Charge |
Sets the fixed amount that is payable per bill for the installed capacity of the customer's solar system. It contains 4 fields:
|
NEM Applicable Duration |
This field is ONLY applicable when the solar compensation mechanism is set to "Net Energy Metering (NEM)". It sets the duration that NEM applies before it switches over to a Net Billing compensation model. It contains 2 fields:
|
To add an Extra Field:
- Click on the
next to Extra Fields.
- Click on Extra Field Name drop down and choose an option.
- Enter in the relevant value next to this.
Comments
0 comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.