Seasonal Normative Comparison
The Seasonal Normative Comparison module compares the customer's cooling or heating energy use from the previous season against that of other homes. This comparison motivates them to reduce cooling energy use during the upcoming extreme weather season.
Appears in: Seasonal Report
Requirements
Utility Requirements
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Category |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Required Cloud Service |
Energy Efficiency Cloud Service |
|
Scale |
Not applicable. |
Customer Requirements
|
Category |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Billing Frequency |
Monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly. |
|
Data Delivery Frequency |
Monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly. |
|
Data Requirements |
Energy disaggregation data is required to get an estimate of the customer's heating and cooling usage. Minimum: The minimum requirement is average energy use data for the households in a utility's region. This data is typically obtained from public data sources. The module then uses the customer’s responses to the Home Energy Analysis survey to adjust the averages and yield personalized results about the customer's heating or cooling usage. Recommended: The recommended approach is to use weather data and at least six historical bills, as this will provide more accurate heating and cooling disaggregation results. Additional data requirements may apply depending on the utility's setup, configuration, and whether any advanced data science models are used. |
|
Data History |
A minimum of one historical bill. Additional data history requirements apply depending on the utility's setup, configuration, and any data science model usage. |
|
Data Coverage |
Not applicable. |
|
Supported Fuels |
Electricity, gas, and dual fuel. |
User Experience
This section describes the summer Seasonal Normative Comparison experience for a customer whose program includes an Efficiency Zone.
Normative Message Label: The label identifies the comparison season, such as last summer or winter.
Insight: The insight above the bar chart summarizes whether the customer used more or less than on a given fuel type as compared to efficient homes during the last season.
Bar Chart: The bar chart displays how much energy each group in the comparison used.
You: This bar indicates how the customer is doing. This color typically corresponds to the utility brand color.
Homes in the Efficiency Zone: This bar indicates how all the customer's neighbors in the Efficiency Zone are doing. It is usually green. The energy use data that is shown is the mean energy use value. The bar is labeled according to the version of the normative comparison graph used in the customer's Progress Report.
Explainer:The text below the bar chart defines what Efficiency Zone means, along with the seasonal date range.
User Experience Variations
The user experience varies for customers depending upon their service types, available data, costs, and locale. Note that the following list indicates the primary user experience variations, not all possible variations.
Winter Seasonal Variation
The winter version of the Seasonal Neighbor Comparison compares the customers heating energy use from the previous winter to other homes in order to motivate them to reduce heating energy use during the upcoming winter. It varies from the summer version of the report in the following ways:
- Normative Message Label: The label identifies the comparison season. For example, "Last Winter."
- Insight: A state-dependent insight focused on heating use summarizes the information in the bar chart. For example, "You used more on heating than homes in the Efficiency Zone."
Normative Comparison Type
The type of normative comparison used in this module is consistent with the comparison graph used in the customer's Progress Report. For example, customers who receive a two-bar Neighbor Comparison as part of their Progress Report receive a two-bar Seasonal Neighbor Comparison. "Efficient homes” is used for Neighbor Comparison recipients in the insight, graph label, and explainer areas for each data state.
Insight Variations
The module insight varies depending on the graph state. The following table provides an example of how the module changes for a customer whose program includes an Efficiency Zone.
| Graph State | Insight |
|---|---|
| Less than efficient homes | You used less on [cooling/heating] than homes in the Efficiency Zone |
| More than efficient homes | You used more on [cooling/heating] than homes in the Efficiency Zone |
| Same as efficient homes | Nice work! You used about the same amount of energy on [cooling/heating] as homes in the Efficiency Zone |