A consumption profile is Aurora's hour-by-hour estimate of a customer's energy usage, built from the usage you enter. Aurora compares it with the system's production every hour, which is why a home with solar can import and export energy in the same month.
In this article:
- How Aurora builds the profile
- Viewing usage by hour
- Imports and exports in one month
- Downloading hourly data
- Key considerations
- FAQ
- Related articles
How Aurora builds the profile
Aurora fits a typical profile to the usage you enter. The months you enter stay as entered, and the profile fills in the rest. Where the typical profile comes from depends on the project:
- Location based option: for US projects, Aurora uses a typical hourly load profile for the selected location, adjusted for the appliances you set in Edit appliances.
- Lifestyle pattern: Aurora uses the pattern's load shape. For projects in Germany, Spain, France, and Great Britain, typical profiles come from lifestyle patterns. See Lifestyle usage patterns.
- Interval data: Aurora uses your data. If it covers only part of the year, Aurora fills the missing hours from the location's typical profile.
For commercial projects, Building type sets the shape. For example, Retail follows business hours, and its months are fairly flat.
Viewing usage by hour
On the project's Energy usage page, use the dropdown next to Today's energy usage to switch between Entire year and a typical day in each season: Spring day, Summer day, Fall day, or Winter day. A day view shows 24 hourly bars, from 12 am to 11 pm, and Avg. daily usage in kWh. The bill chart beside it stays monthly.
Each day view averages every day in three months:
- Spring day: March to May
- Summer day: June to August
- Fall day: September to November
- Winter day: December to February
These months apply to projects in the Northern Hemisphere. Projects in the Southern Hemisphere use different months.
Imports and exports in one month
Aurora compares production and usage hour by hour, not month by month. In hours when the system produces more than the home uses, the extra energy goes to the grid. In hours when it produces less, the home draws from the grid. So a single month can include both.
For example, in one California project's July, the home used 1,406 kWh and the system produced 1,922 kWh. Hour by hour, the home exported 1,145 kWh and imported 629 kWh. On July 15, it exported from 8 am to 4 pm and imported from 5 pm on.
A battery can store extra energy to use later, which lowers both numbers. In the same project, adding storage cut annual imports from 7,420 to 4,559 kWh and exports from 9,741 to 6,469 kWh. For how Aurora models batteries, see Understanding Storage Modeling for Energy Arbitrage.
Downloading hourly data
To see every hour of a design, download its hourly data. The file reflects the design's system and storage.
- Open the design in Design Mode.
- Click Downloads in the toolbar.
- Click Hourly data. Aurora downloads a CSV file.
The file has one row per hour, with columns including Consumption kWh, Production kWh, Grid Surplus (-) / Deficit (+) kWh w/o Storage, Import Rate, Export Rate, and Hourly Billing (- = credit, + = balance). Surplus or deficit is the hour's consumption minus its production, so a negative value means the home exported energy that hour.
Key considerations
- Changing the usage pattern or the appliances changes the profile, and with it the customer's estimated bill.
- On a commercial rate, the bill chart stacks Electric bill and Demand Charge ($).
- The hourly data reflects the design you download it from, so download it again after you change the system or storage.
FAQ
Why does my customer import and export energy in the same month?
Aurora compares production and usage every hour. In sunny hours, the system can produce more than the home uses, and in the evening, the home draws from the grid, so one month can include both.
How does Aurora calculate hourly usage without interval data?
It fits a typical hourly profile, from the selected weather station or lifestyle pattern, to the months you enter. See How Aurora builds the profile.