Forecasting Savings

Forecast potential savings for a new energy project by creating an account, confirming the utility and tariff, baselining usage, modeling solar production, and running a savings analysis.

In this tutorial

The example we use in this tutorial is a residential rooftop solar PV project with the following characteristics:

Residential home
Located in Sonoma County, California, USA
Customer provided three months of electricity bills: January, February, and March
Installer is quoting a 2.65 kW solar system with a 170-degree azimuth and 17-degree tilt

If you are forecasting for non-residential projects or technologies other than Solar PV, we still recommend reviewing this tutorial. Many steps also apply to C&I projects and other project types, including batteries, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and rate switching.

The five steps that you will perform in this tutorial are:

Create a Full Switch Account to set up a Site for your potential customer.
Confirm the Utility and Electricity Tariff to define the customer's rate plan.
Baseline Electricity Usage to determine how much your customer paid in the past and would pay in the future without the solar system.
Model Solar Production to model the system using supported solar production inputs.
Run a Savings Analysis to calculate first-year and lifetime savings.