Tariff Analysis Qualify

Qualify tab on Tariff Analysis dialog

Many utilities provide a large number of tariffs and separate their customers by the amount of energy use they have or by the amount of demand. The Qualify object allows only certain tariffs that are modelled to be used. If the results of the simulation fall outside of the range of qualifications, that tariff is still calculated but in the results the “Qualified” entry will say “No” and the Qualify object that caused its exclusion is shown. Multiple tariffs from the same utility can be modelled and only one of them should be used, make sure that the qualifiers are consistent especially within the same Group name (defined on the Tariff tab). Multiple Qualify objects can appear for a specific rate and they can be based on any variable.

The energy used and demands for each month vary. Since it is possible that they vary across the minimum and maximum values defined by this object, a choice in how to treat the thresholds is necessary. The utility probably has very specific requirements about which months or consecutive months can be above or below a threshold to qualify for the rate.

Number of qualify checks

The number of qualify checks for this tariff is defined here.

Name

The name used for the Qualify object and displayed if the tariff qualify or does not qualify. It is also treated as a variable and contains:

• 1 for each month that does qualify,
• 0 for months that do not qualify, and
• -1 for months that are not part of the season selected.

Variable name

The name of the variable used. For energy and demand, the automatically created variables, totalEnergy and totalDemand should be used, respectively.

Qualify type

This defines criteria for checking tariff’s qualification, the options can be either “Minimum” or “Maximum”.

Threshold value or variable name

This is the minimum or maximum value set for the qualify check. If the variable has values that are less than this value when the qualify type is minimum then the tariff may be disqualified. If the variable has values that are greater than this value when the qualify type is maximum then the tariff may be disqualified. Depending on the threshold test entry (see below) this threshold value applies to all months, some of the months or just a single month. If a variable that contains this threshold values is used, it should be defined on User Variables tab.

Season

If the UtilityCost:Qualify only applies to a season, enter the season name from the following list:

• Annual
• Winter
• Spring
• Summer
• Fall (Autumn)

It defaults to Annual.

Threshold test

The Number of months (below) is used in one of two different ways depending on this setting. Select from:

• 1-Count where the qualification is based on the count of the total number of months per year.
• 2-Consecutive where the qualification is based on a consecutive number of months.

Input Number of months

Check this checkbox if you would like to enter the number of months.

Number of months

A number is used here from 1 to 12. If Input Number of months is not checked, 12 is assumed when the qualify type is minimum and 1 when the qualify type is maximum. This is the number of months that the threshold test applies to determine if the rate qualifies or not. If the season is less than 12 months (if it is not annual) then the value is automatically reduced to the number of months of the season.