Seasonal Breakout

The Seasonal Breakout module shows what percentage of a customer's energy use during the previous summer or winter was dedicated to cooling or heating. Its purpose is to highlight how significant these seasonal costs can be and to prepare the customer for the related insights and tips presented later in the report.

Appears in: Seasonal Report

Requirements

Utility Requirements

Category Description
Required Cloud Service Oracle Utilities Opower Energy Efficiency Cloud Service
Scale Not applicable.

Customer Requirements

Category Description
Billing Frequency Monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly.
Data Delivery Frequency Not applicable.
Data Requirements

The Oracle Utilities Opower platform requires data about how much energy a customer used for cooling or heating in the previous summer or winter season.

Minimum: The minimum requirement is to have average energy use data for households in a utility's region. This data is typically obtained from public data sources and is used as a baseline for the Home Energy Analysis survey. Customer responses to the survey can then be used to determine how their energy breaks down into heating and cooling categories.

Recommended: The recommended approach is to use Oracle Utilities Opower data science models to generate more accurate heating and cooling disaggregation results. In this case, the data requirements include a combination of billed usage data, daily or subdaily AMI data, and weather data. Your Delivery Team will work with you to understand the specific requirements and help you identify the best approach for your situation.

Data History

Depending on which Oracle Utilities Opower data approach is used, one or more of the following data history requirements will apply:

  • Billed usage data from the previous summer or winter season.
  • A minimum of 60 days of AMI reads for AMI customers.
  • A minimum of six historical bills for non-AMI customers.
Data Coverage Depending on which Oracle Utilities Opower data approach is used, the data coverage requirements may include subdaily AMI data and temperature data points.
Supported Fuels Electricity-only, gas-only, dual fuel.

User Experience

The image below is an example of the module for a customer who receives the summer Seasonal Report.

Image of the seasonal breakout module for a customer that receives the summer Seasonal Report

Header: Highlights that cooling usage significantly impacts the customer's summer energy bills.

Insight: Indicates the percentage of energy used for cooling during the previous summer.

Explainer: Clarifies that the calculation includes common cooling appliances such as window units, central air systems, and fans.

User Experience Variations

Winter Seasonal Report

The winter version of the Seasonal Report focuses on the impact that heating had on the customer's previous winter energy bills. The explainer text below the insight notes that the calculation considers furnaces, boilers, baseboard heaters, and space heaters.