Cost Insights
Eliq provides engaging energy insights in cost, in addition to traditional energy units like kWh or m³
The most engaging insight that can be provided to end users, is any insight in Cost. Energy is typically provided using energy units such as Watt Hours (Wh), Kilowatt Hours (kWh) or Cubic Meters (m3), the latter specifically for Gas. But Eliq does support providing Energy Insights in Cost and does that in a couple of different ways.
Requesting Energy Insights in Cost
The Insights API can return several Insights in both Energy and Cost depending on what is requested and whether or not there are parameters for the location that supports the request. Cost is calculated based on energy and a calculation which can come from different sources.
Price Formula
This is the most common way of setting, calculating and providing Cost Insights. A price formula contains information per Location which describes the Tariff for a Location and a Fuel. Price formulas can be set and updated through the Data Management API. The Insights API can, for example return Cost for Consumption that is calculated on the price formula to provide an end user with an accurate understanding of what their Energy Cost was for a certain period of time. If the user updates their tariff, the price formula can be updated to reflect this change.
- For more information about how to set price formulas, read the “getting started” article about the Price formula Model
Average Price per Watt-hour and Country
Eliq supports providing a Location’s Consumption in Cost when there is no price formula or user tariff input by calculating cost based on a “Country’s Average price per Wh”, a value that Eliq stores in the platform and keeps up to date for each country in Europe*. This value is used to provide “Average Cost Consumption” values to an end user in an app. The average cost per Wh is a very broad number, which doesn’t provide accuracy such as price formula, but it can be used to help users compare energy consumption in cost between different periods.
It is also returned as Estimated Energy Savings for Advice if there isn’t a price formula available.
By using the Average Price per Wh and Country values, it is possible to create end user experiences that provide consumption in cost as well as encourages user tariff input.
- More information about requesting Cost Consumption based on Average Price per Wh and Country can be found in the API reference Documentation: Get Location Consumption.
- For more information about average cost in advice, visit the Estimated Savings in Energy Advisor Feature Article.
- For more details on how to present Average Cost in an app, encouraging User Tariff input, visit the User Tariff Input Use Case Feature Article
*Eliq sources the Average price per Wh data from Eurostat for all countries in the EU. For the UK, which isn’t part of the Eurostat data source, Eliq uses the UK Price Cap to provide average cost.