Interval Data Definitions

Oracle Utilities requires the following data to be sent from the utility: billing data (including data about the customer, premise, service point, and billed usage) and interval data (specifically interval usage values). This documentation focuses specifically on the file formats and requirements for obtaining the interval usage values. It is assumed that this information will augment data provided by your billing system.

Logical Diagram of Data Entity Relationships

The diagram below illustrates the logical relationships between the entities and is not intended to translate the data model for any particular utility or Oracle Utilities Opower system.

Diagram showing the logical relationships between the entities and is not intended to translate the data model for any particular utility or Oracle Utilities Opower system.

It is assumed that all of the data elements described in this diagram will be provided. Interval data will augment the customer, premise, account, and billing data that are provided from the billing system. The common data element that Oracle Utilities uses to unify the billing to interval data is the unique service point identifier. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the service point identifier definition is consistent across both billing and interval data extracts.

Service Point

A service point is an unchanging identifier that is specific to a service type at a location. A service point is the logical “hole in the wall” through which the gas or electricity flows. The service_point_id must remain unchanged from the time of construction until the location is destroyed.

A customer who has both gas and electric accounts must have one service point for each account. In the case of an individual with service at multiple locations, this person would be treated as a separate customer at each of the person's locations. For this reason, Oracle Utilities requests both an identifier for the customer, customer_id and an identifier for the service location, premise_id. Contact your Delivery Team if your customers have multiple service points per service type at a location.

A service point is logically a meter, but the service_point_id should not be the actual meter id. Meters can be replaced or upgraded, but the service_point_id must remain unchanged even when meters are replaced or customers at the location change.
Each account is associated with one and exactly one service point. Likewise, a service point must be associated with only one account at any given point in time, but over the history of the service point it can be associated with different accounts.
All service points for a customer with multiple service types must be at the same premise.
The service_point_id can be the premise_id concatenated to the service type (G, E, W) or concatenated to a dash and a service number (-1, -2, -3, ….).

Usage Value

A usage value is the amount of energy consumed at a specific service point over a given period of time. The term “usage value” refers to the amount of energy delivered to or generated at a service point during the time interval that is specified. Usage values do not represent the cumulative value displayed on the meter at the end of the interval.

Interval Usage Values

The aggregation of the interval usage values for a service point should illustrate a linear progression of the energy usage for that service point over a period of time.

Any gaps in usage values should indicate an actual gap in service and should be a rare occurrence.
There should be no overlaps in usage periods for a service point.
All reads in a given file should be equivalent in interval size. For example, all reads within a file should be 15 minute intervals, and not a mix between 15/30/60 minute intervals.
Data should be provided in fixed intervals (for example, always ending at fixed 15 minute increments of the hour.) Valid time values are 0015, 0030…2345, 0000.
Data should be grouped by service_point_id and date, and ordered by time.

Important: If a service point has net-metering, only one usage value for each interval is supported. If you have values for gross consumption and gross generation, and they are both associated with the same service point ID, you must combine them into net consumption before transferring that data to Oracle Utilities.