In this article you are going to learn how to configure and visualise costs in the EMS Platform.
Contents of this article:
Introduction to energy costs
Once you know how much you are consuming, you might be interested in the cost it will entail.
Visualising costs on the platform is very easy if you have configured properly the supplies and prices. In this article, you are going to learn how is the platform organised and how to carry out this configuration.
Requirements
In order to visualise costs on the platform make sure that you have everything that you need:
- Having real time data monitored.
- Having meters with data in the platform.
- Having devices with data assigned to locations.
- Having consumption parameters with at least the 30 min frequency or more (15 min, 5 min) if data has been inserted in a discrete way, or having accumulated data.
Costs configuration
Once you have data on the platform, the first thing you must do in order to visualise the cost is configuring Supplies and prices.
These are the steps required:
- Create a price. A price contains the billing strategies and the tariff structure of your bills. A price can be shared among several energy contracts.
- Create a supply. A supply contains a POD number, unique on the platform. It contains the basic information of the fiscal meter.
- Create a contract. A contract contains contractual information with the retailer, such as contracted power. There can be more than one contract for each supply.
- Assign the supply to your location. This step links the information available on the settings screen with the visualisation feature. This step consists of matching the supplies that you have configured with the devices on the location where they belong to.
In the following graph, you can see the link between each of the described elements:
Note that a device can only be assigned to a Supply. You can have several supplies on a Location with the corresponding devices on it.
Cost visualisation
The platform offers different ways to visualise costs:
Dashboards
Get a quick glance at how much is the energy cost of your installations by creating dashboards and adding the cost widget. Learn more about how to configure dashboards and widgets.
You can also use the Demand load Widget in the Dashboards. This allows you to know the possible load excess penalties before the customer receives the real bill. The widget calculates the Load Demand of the devices and it compares with the contracted load.
Cost feature
This tool is one of the main screens of the platform to visualise in a detailed way the costs. Select the device, the dates, and the frequency and analyse with the charts and tables. Learn more about the cost feature.
Reports
The platform offers basic templates to help you performing bill simulation and to warn you of the actual cost of what you are consuming. Prevent your customers periodically of how much will they have to pay. Here you have the list of the reports where you can visualise cost:
- Cost and energy
- Water bill simulation
- Electrical bill simulation
- Exported electricity bill simulation
- Thermal bill simulation
- Gas bill simulation
Apps
- Indexed Prices App (Spain): this App allows you to import wholesale market prices into the platform based on the formula that you have contracted with your supplier.
Tips and tricks
Simulate contracts
Do you want to check which option will better suit your client? You can simulate your energy cost with other contracts in order to optimise your savings. Learn how to configure a simulation contract and how to display it on the cost feature.