Bill Guide Most Recent Bill Weather Insight

The Most Recent Bill Weather Insight highlights how many unusually hot or cold days may have impacted the customer's energy use in the previous bill period. The goal is to help customers better understand the factors influencing their bill. The insight includes a tooltip to define what counts as an unusually hot or cold day.

Requirements

Utility Requirements

Same as described in Bill Guide.

Customer Requirements

Category Description
Billing Frequency Monthly.

Data Delivery Frequency

 Monthly.

Data Requirements

 Not applicable. Weather data is obtained from a third-party weather service.

Data History

 Not applicable.

Data Coverage

 Not applicable.

Supported Fuels

 Electricity, gas, and dual fuel.

User Experience

The user experience described below is for customers who have gas, electricity, or both.

Screenshot of an example of the weather impact insight

Title: The title of the widget reflects a focus on the impact of weather on the customer's bill.

Tooltip: A tooltip icon appears next to the title to explain what is meant by weather impact. When selected, it displays a short description of an "unusually hot day" or "unusually cold day" (whichever is applicable).

For example, the tooltip may define an "unusually hot day" as a day with temperatures above 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and an "unusually cold day" as a day with temperatures below 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

Number of Days: A number is displayed to show how many days in the bill period were unusually hot or cold, and which may have had a significant effect on the customer's energy use. If there were no unusually hot or cold days, the insight displays 0 DAYS.

Insight Statement: An insight statement briefly explains that the weather may have impacted the customer's energy use.

See more detail: This link takes users to the Data Browser, which contains a more detailed picture of the weather and the customer's energy use over time. It opens the bill view of the most recent completed bill period (as opposed to an in-progress bill period). The energy use or energy costs view may be displayed depending on which view has been set as the default for the utility.

Calculations

Extreme Weather Days

The number of extreme weather days is calculated as follows:

  1. Identify the days that can be classified as unusually hot or cold. The following criteria are used:
    • The day must be actually hot or cold (for example, above 20 degrees Celsius, or below 16 degrees Celsius).
    • The mean temperature for the day must be eight degrees above (for hot days) or below (for cold days) the mean temperature during the same date range from the previous year.
  2. Sum up the days that meet above criteria.

    Note:

    For customers who are billed for multiple premises, the extreme weather days number can be an aggregate from across those premises. For example, if a customer has three premises, and one premise had one extreme weather day and another premise had three extreme weather days, then the calculation would add these days together and display four (4) days as the number in the widget.