There are 3 options for modelling a customer’s energy use:

Load a typical profile and adjust as needed

Select a consumption (load) profile based on the state and consumption pattern that matches the customer’s usage.  

You can then customise that profile to more closely fit the customer’s usable patterns and to match bill data.

Customise a Typical Profile

• After selecting and loading a profile, you may wish to alter the profile to better suit the individual customer's power use.

• Click the 'Customise profile' button to bring up the profile editable chart.

• Here you can drag each chart value up or down to customise the profile. At the top right, you can switch from a single day editor to a full week, then select each day you wish to adjust.

• When done, you have some options about how you save the full-year profile.

• You may select the state to set the seasonal averaging that is applied through the year.

• You may choose residential or commercial, again for the seasonal average based on that market.

• You may reset the average daily profile if required

• Optionally, set variability per month OR Time of Use energy ratios to match a bill (see below)

• You may choose to save this new profile into the list of typical profiles to use later.

• If consumption data has been given as a month per row, you may also graph the average consumption to manually adjust the consumption profile to match with the data given.

Set Monthly Consumption Variability

1. Select the option to ‘Set Consumption per Month’.

2. Choose whether you wish to enter average daily energy values or total energy volume per month.

3. Add values for each month, and choose other options or save your new year profile.

Set TOU Percentage Consumption

SolarPlus allows the user to set TOU (peak, shoulder, and off-peak) percentage consumption

By checking the TOU Percentage Consumption box in the customize profile dialog window, the user can effectively rebuild an entirely new load profile by a percentage value to ideally replicate a clients bill

The user can simply enter the TOU percentage value in the Tariff period field and click Save for the new changes to take effect in the consumption profile.

Download monthly and yearly load profiles in Image or PDF format:

After uploading the consumption profile into the system design in SolarPlus, an average consumption kWh graph is seen just below the Weekend/Weekday charts. These charts portray the average consumption in kWh for different time periods. By toggling between the different options ( 1Y, 6M, 3M), the user can see the timely variations in average load profiles.

These load profiles can be downloaded from SolarPlus as images (png, jpg, svg) or in PDF format.

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Set how much energy is used each month / monthly variation

• You may want to vary the monthly average daily consumption in order to better reflect the bill totals for this customer.

• Choose a profile and customise then hit the ‘Customise Load Profile’ icon to the right of the weekend chart.

• Click the option ‘Set consumption per month’

• Select the option to enter daily average kWh figures or monthly kWh energy total

• Enter the monthly values and hit save.

• The load profile is regenerated with the monthly variability.

Upload recorded meter data in .csv format

To Upload

• Click Upload .csv

• Enter a profile name, for example, the name of the customer, or their building.

• Identify the type (Residential | Commercial)

• Identify the format (2 Column, 3 Column, Row to a Day)

• If the format is Row to a Day, enter the filter

• Select the file to be uploaded

• Allow a few moments for large files to be processed.

• Check the consumption profile graphs and zoom in to the different dates of the year to double-check that the uploaded data matches the expected consumption profile for the site.

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Optionally:

• Select Add to typical profiles if you want to use this profile for other quotes

• Apply seasonal variation if you only have 2 months worth of data and want to extrapolate that to a full year and apply the standard seasonal variation for that State.

• If the format is Row to a Day, you can Capture Additional Data to include q1 kVArh and b1 export data

Things to note:

• At least one full day of profile data must be uploaded to generate an estimated full year profile. Any length of continuous data may be uploaded to generate this profile.

• If the meter data covers less than a full year, when extrapolating data out to create a full typical year, the seasonal averages of that state or territory will be used. Select the state/territory and the type of premises for which the profile applies, either residential or commercial.

• Accepted kWh format: decimal value

Time intervals:

• Accepted time intervals: 1 hr, 30min, 15min, 10min, 5min, 1min (though 1min resolution will get summed to 10min intervals

• Intervals <1 min are not accepted.

• Data must be a continuous time series with regular intervals. 

• The time range must start on the hour (eg 11:00). If it doesn’t (eg 11:02), then the times must be shifted.

• Accepted date formats:

  YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS

  DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM

Supported File Types

2 Column (kWh)

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2 Column (kW)

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3 Column (kWh)

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Row to a day

You will be required to enter a filter. This filter means that only rows beginning with this value will be read.

• With NEM12 files, this filter is often ‘300’

• With the example below, the filter is the NMI number.

• If your file has just the date in Column A, please insert another column at the start, fill all rows with the same value, eg 300, and use 300 as the filter.

• Ensure there are no columns between the Date column and the start of the kWh readings columns

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3 Column - (kVArh)

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Row to a day - kVArh

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Multiple Meter Row to a day

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Troubleshooting .csv upload issues

Missing data

If the site being metered experienced power outages during the recording period, then there may be gaps in the data.

 Open the .csv in excel or similar, and fill in the missing gaps.

Unnecessary information

Some meter data files include columns with extra information, such as Meter numbers. Please delete all unnecessary columns.

Errors in date format

Sometimes date formats are non-readable. They might be in a non-standard format, or include both the start and end time in the same field, eg

Accepted time and date formats are:

• YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS

• DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM

To fix this, you will need to reset the datetime column:

1. Enter the start date and time eg. '2/8/2022 12:00:00 am'

2. Select the range of that column by clicking that first value the scroll through to the bottom cell you want to fill with datetime data and hold SHIFT while clicking the bottom cell. All cells in between are selected.

3. Go the the menu Edit > Fill > Series

4. Set the time step value which will be 0:30 for 30 minute resolution or 1:00 for hourly.

5. Compare the end datetime with the original time data to ensure it matches.

6. Delete any column that is not required for upload (for 2-column format only retain Datetime + kWh values

Converting multiple meter row to a day data into the required upload format

See the conversion video below for meter data that is grouped together by day. (common in NZ)

Excel tips

See this useful tutorial for tips on editing .csv files: https://www.ablebits.com/office-addins-blog/excel-delete-rows/

Build an Off-grid load profile

See Off-grid design page.

Manage Custom Consumption Profiles

Open any quote, go to the Energy page and click on the menu icon next to the Consumption Profile heading. From here you can delete or download custom consumption profiles you have created.