Neighbor Comparison
The Neighbor Comparison compares the customer (“You”) to two groups: “Efficient Neighbors” and “All Neighbors.” The results are displayed in a horizontal bar graph, and a message explains how the customer compares to their efficient neighbors. The customer can fall into one of three states: "Great,” "Good,” or “Using more than average". "Efficient Neighbors" are defined as the most efficient 20% of the customer's neighbors. An informational section below the bar graph provides details about the comparison.
On this page:
Requirements
Utility Requirements
| Required Cloud Service | Same as listed in the product-wide requirements. |
| Scale | No applicable scale requirements. |
Customer Requirements
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Billing Frequency |
Monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly. |
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Data Delivery Frequency |
Monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly. |
| Data Requirements |
Billing data is required. Additionally, some third-party data (geospatial data and parcel data, for example) is required to select other similar neighbors or households for the comparison. The feature will not display if it is unable to select the minimum number of neighbors. The minimum threshold may vary depending on your utility's setup and configuration. Contact your Delivery Team if you have any questions. |
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Data History |
A single bill from the last bill period or previous to last bill period. |
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Data Coverage |
Not applicable. Data at the bill level is used. |
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Supported Fuels |
Electricity, gas, and dual fuel. |
Limitations
- Neighbor Comparisons on the Web Versus Printed Reports: The neighbor comparison on the web may be slightly different than the neighbor comparison in printed Home Energy Reports. Both report types still depend on the same set of neighbors selected for a customer.
- Dynamic Neighbor Calculations: A new set of neighbors is not dynamically calculated whenever a customer signs in to their web account and views the neighbor comparison. This is because the neighbor selection algorithm is an intensive matching process that takes a non-trivial amount of time to run, and so the web version of the feature would take a very long time to load. This also means that if customers update their home information on the web (for example, by using the Home Energy Analysis survey), they will not see an updated neighbor comparison until Oracle Utilities systems are able to run neighbor re-selection processes at a time later.
- Dual Fuel Customers and Combined Energy View: Dual fuel customers see a combined "Energy" view as the default view in the neighbor comparison. If a customer has no gas data, but is part of a dual fuel utility, the customer will still see a neighbor comparison for electricity (and vice versa). Additionally, note that for dual fuel customers, the neighbor selection process selects neighbors based on all the home characteristics, but performs a comparison for each fuel independently. The gas values are calculated based on the gas bill periods, not the electric bill periods (and vice versa).
- Customers with Electric Vehicles or Heat Pumps: The neighbor comparison will not be impacted if custom survey questions about electric vehicles (EVs) or heat pumps are added to the Home Energy Analysis. In other words, customers who have these attributes will not be compared to other customers who have these attributes, because the data on these attributes is not widely available. Even if these specific questions were added as new rules in the neighbor selection process, most customers would end up matching with neighbors based on standard information about a premise (such as square footage), unless a very high number of people completed the Home Energy Analysis survey and provided enough data to affect the selection.
User Experience
The user experience described in this section is for customers who have a desktop screen, a single fuel (electricity), and "neighbor" terminology as opposed to "similar homes" terminology.
Insight Statement: The insight statement above the chart ("You used x% more [fuelType] than your neighbors") provides information about why the bar chart appears the way it does. Specifically, it displays a percentage for how much more or less the customer used compared to their "efficient neighbors", or how much more or less the customer used compared to "all neighbors" (including efficient neighbors).
How You're Doing Icon: This icon visually represents whether the customer is doing "Great," "Good," or "Using more than average." There are different states for the icon depending on the customer's state.
| Customer State | Icon Displayed |
|---|---|
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Great |
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Good or using more than average |
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See Energy Details: This link takes customers to the Data Browser to explore their historical energy costs.
Bar Chart: The bar chart displays how much energy each group in the comparison used. The order of the bars should be: the bar with the smallest value on top and the bar with the largest value on the bottom.
- You: This bar indicates how the customer is doing. This is often a color that corresponds to the utility brand color.
- Average Neighbors: This bar indicates how all the customer's neighbors are doing. It is usually a gray or neutral color.
- Efficient Neighbors: This bar displays a usage value for the most efficient 20% of the customer's neighbors. It is usually colored green because green is commonly associated with energy efficiency. Note that the efficient neighbors value is not an average of the top 20% of neighbors. A threshold value—the 20th percentile neighbor—is used to determine the value.
Date Range: The date range displays the time period that is covered by the comparison. The comparison always covers the last completed billing period. The year accompanies both the start date and end date (for example, Dec 20, 2019 – Jan 20, 2020).
Who Are My Neighbors: When clicked, information about the characteristics that match between the customer's home and the neighbors' homes is displayed. See Who Are My Neighbors below for details.
Call-to-Action: The call-to-action is a link (such as See Energy Details) that directs customers to additional information. The link varies depending on how well the customer is doing.
| Customer State | Link Displayed |
|---|---|
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Customer falls in the "Great" or "Good" categories. |
SEE ENERGY DETAILS Links to the interactive Data Browser. |
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Customer falls in the "Using more than average" category. |
SEE WAYS TO SAVE Links to Ways to Save. |
Neighbor Comparison States
Different components of the neighbor comparison module can take on different states depending on how the customer is doing. This section captures the different neighbor comparison states that may be displayed. Most of these states apply to both single and dual fuel customers, though there is an edge case that applies only to dual fuel customers. See Edge Case: Less Than Neighbors below for more information.
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Normative Message / Insight |
Customer State |
Description |
|---|---|---|
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"You’re using X% less [fuelType] than your efficient neighbors." |
Great |
Customer uses the least of both groups.
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"You’re using about the same amount of [fuelType] as your efficient neighbors." |
Great |
There is a negligible, less than, or equal to difference between the customer and efficient neighbors.
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"You’re using about the same amount of [fuelType] as your efficient neighbors." |
Good |
There is a negligible, greater difference between the customer and efficient neighbors.
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"You’re using X% more [fuelType] than your efficient neighbors." |
Good |
Customer used less than all neighbors, but more than efficient neighbors.
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"You’re using X% more [fuelType] than your efficient neighbors." |
Good |
There is a negligible difference between the customer and all neighbors.
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"You used X% less than your neighbors" |
Good |
Web Only: This message may display for dual fuel customers when they select just electricity or just natural gas from the fuel selector, rather than the combined "energy" option. This is a known edge case, as most messages compare the customer to their efficient neighbors.
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"You’re using X% more [fuelType] than your neighbors." |
More than average |
Customer has used the most. A warning icon is displayed is displayed as part of the messaging text.
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Who Are My Neighbors
Customers can click Who are my neighbors? to display information on the characteristics of the neighbors that the customer is being compared to. The purpose is to give customers a better idea of the fairness of the comparison. The contents of the description vary depending on what data is available. The information available is broken down into a message about the number of similar homes, a list of characteristics, and a link to the Home Energy Analysis.
Number of Similar Homes: A summary message specifies the number of similar homes that are included in the comparison. The number is targeted at 100, but if not enough qualified neighbors exist a smaller number may be used. Reports are only generated for households with a minimum number of qualified neighbors.
Note: Neighbors are defined by site rather than by occupant. For example, if an occupant of a neighbor home relocates over the course of the program and another resident moves in, the comparison will subsequently be to the new occupant of the same home. Neighbor sites are nearby homes that have characteristics that typically lead to similar energy needs, and only include homes that appear to be occupied at the time of the comparison. They are not necessarily homes on the same street.
Comparison Characteristics: A list of characteristics a customer shares with the neighbors included in the comparison are displayed with a green check mark. If a characteristic is unknown for a customer, it is not included in the comparison and hidden from view. The characteristics may include:
- Location: The average distance or proximity of the neighbors' homes. The number is rounded to the nearest whole unit and is meant to assure customers they are being compared against homes that are nearby.
- Home Size: The average home square footage among neighbors.
- Heating Type: The percentage of neighbors with the same heating type, such as gas or electric heating.
- Building Type: The percentage of neighbors with the same building type, such as apartments, condos, or single family homes.
- Occupants: The average number of occupants among the neighbors.
Update Home Energy Analysis: Clicking this button takes the customer to the Home Energy Analysis so that they can provide the latest details about their home and make the neighbor comparison more accurate. Note, however, that the neighbor comparison is not updated in real time based on a customer's updates. Additionally, the call-to-action button does not change even if the customer has already visited the Home Energy Analysis.
User Experience Variations
Competitive Markets Terminology
Utilities in competitive markets may choose to use different language in the neighbor comparison to make it clear that the customers is being compared to other customers of the same utility.
Insight Statement: The insight statement above the chart either says "similar ABC homes" or "your ABC neighbors," where ABC is the name of the utility.
Who Are My Neighbors Message: This message says "Based on what we know about you, we compare you to [numberOfHomes] similar [Utility] homes with these characteristics", where [Utility] is the name of the utility.
Dual Fuel Experience
If the customer is dual fuel, they will see an additional drop-down menu for switching between fuel types. By default, the "Energy" fuel label is shown, which is a view that combines natural gas and electricity using a price-weighted Energy Index. Electricity is the second label and gas is the third. The drop-down only appears for dual fuel customers. Single fuel customers only see a comparison for their fuel type, without a drop-down.
Edge Case: Less Than Neighbors
For dual fuel customers, the neighbor comparison has to compare the customer to the same neighbor group ("all neighbors" or "efficient neighbors") for all three options available in the fuel selector: energy, electricity, and gas. This rule results in an edge case where the customer may see a "You used less than your neighbors" message. (In most cases, the feature only compares the customer to all neighbors when the customer is using more than all neighbors. Otherwise, the module compares them to efficient neighbors in order to encourage more efficient behavior.)
Note: This limitation only applies to the neighbor comparison for the web.
For example, let's say a duel fuel customer signs in to their online account and views their neighbor comparison. Imagine that the comparison says the customer used 28% more energy than all neighbors. Then let's say the customer clicks the fuel selector and switches to electricity. Imagine they find that they used 88% more electricity than all neighbors. But then let's say they switch to natural gas and find that they used 22% less than all neighbors.
In this case, the statement about natural gas will compare the customer to all neighbors (not efficient neighbors), resulting in the statement, "You used X% less than your neighbors." This is the only scenario in which this particular wording will be used.
Efficiency Zone Experience
If the customer receives Home Energy Reports v3 (either the email or print version), they will see that an Efficiency Zone experience replaces the standard Neighbor Comparison experience on the web. See Efficiency Zone for more information.
Electric Vehicle Experience
Customers who receive the Email Home Energy Reports Electric Vehicle (EV) report edition or the print Home Energy Reports EV report edition can view personalized insights about the impact of EV charging on their overall energy use in the Neighbor Comparison web widget. The EV web experience takes into account the impact of the customer's EV charging on their total energy usage. It also incorporates additional insights (such as disaggregation and detection) and makes it clear to customers how their EV use factors into their report.
This experience is only available to EV customers with Level 2 (L2) chargers and varies from the standard experience in several ways.
Normative Message / Insight Statement: The normative message that appears above the chart includes a link to Ways to Save.
Bar Chart: The "You" bar in the bar chart displays two parts: a solid color to represent the customer's general home energy use, and a lighter shaded color to represent the customer's energy use attributable to EV charging. When a customer selects one of these parts of the bar, a tooltip appears to indicate how much energy use it represents. The usage amounts of each part add up to the total energy use amount displayed at the end of the bar. Additionally, beneath the bar chart is a short legend that explains what the colors of the "You" bar represent.
Who Are My Neighbors: This section contains the same information as in the standard user experience. There is no additional EV attribute highlighted as a reason for the comparison. Customers with an EV are compared against other customers based on standard premise information, such as home type and square footage. One reason for this is that EVs are not widespread, and finding other households where an EV is present is a challenge. However, the EV Neighbor Comparison experience shows customers the impact of EV charging on their overall usage, which helps explain why their comparison is the way it is.
How Do We Calculate Your EV Charging: When this link is clicked, information is displayed to explain that the customer's EV energy use is estimated based on what is known about their home profile as well as the energy use data available for their home.
Requirements
The preferred approach for the EV experience is to use an advanced AMI data science model, since this model generates the most accurate neighbor comparison results. In this case, there are minimum AMI data and weather data requirements for the utility to meet. Contact your Delivery Team for details.
If not enough data is available to use the advanced AMI data science model, then the "EV charging at home component" can be based on billing data and utility-wide average percentages for end use categories (including for EV end use), as well as the customer's answers to the Home Energy Analysis.
Mobile Experience
The Neighbor Comparison for smaller screen sizes consists of the same components as the desktop experience. The only difference is that the layout changes, and the components of the feature stack vertically to fit the screen. Since the Oracle Utilities Opower web features or widgets adapt their layout based on screen size rather than device type, the mobile experience may differ slightly between devices.
Calculations
The neighbor comparison calculation compares a customer's energy use against two groups: All Neighbors and Efficient Neighbors. At a high level, the calculation involves the following steps:
- Identify the start and end dates of the period of comparison.
- Identify the customer's neighbors. The number of neighbors is targeted at 100, but if not enough qualified neighbors exist, a smaller number may be used.
- Identify the customer's efficient neighbors—the 20th percentile of neighbors with the lowest use for the selected period.
- Calculate the customer's total energy use over the time period.
- Calculate the average energy use of all of the customer's neighbors over the time period. This results in an energy use value for the "All Neighbors" group.
- Calculate the 20th percentile of energy use of all the customers' neighbors over the time period. This results in an energy use value for "Efficient Neighbors" group.
- Compare the information and generate a graph that indicates how the customer is doing.
Notes:
- Report Generation: Reports are only generated for households that have a minimum number of neighbors in the “good” state. Households that do not meet this requirement will not receive reports.
- Neighbors Defined by Site: Neighbors are defined by site rather than by customer. For example, if an occupant of a neighbor home relocates over the course of the program and another resident moves in, the comparison will subsequently be to the new occupant of the same home.
- Neighbor Comparison Data: The calculation can compare customers to neighbors who have been selected to participate in the program, as well as neighbors who have not been selected. However, it does not calculate or store comparison data for non-program customers.
- Pro-Rating Neighbors' Bills: A customer’s neighbors' previous bills do not always coincide exactly in time with the customer’s previous bills. To arrive at the neighbor averages used to calculate the comparison, it is necessary to align neighbors' past energy use amounts with the customer's past energy use amounts. In these scenarios, the application pro-rates, or "time-shifts," the neighbor bills to align with the customer bills by determining and adjusting for the amount of overlap. The time-shifted neighbor bills are then used to determine the neighbor averages.