Before tracking and reporting Cost Avoidance it is necessary to configure global, place and meter Cost Avoidance settings.

Click Tools – Options - Global and select the Cost Avoidance tab. The parameters defined from this tab are global settings that will apply to all newly-created meters.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Setting or changing the first five global settings will not affect any existing meters – you must edit existing meters individually using the CAP tab in Meter Properties, or you can edit many at once using the Global Update tool.

Baseline Start:
The day that begins the pre-retrofit baseline period.

Baseline Length: 
The number of months (12 to 36) in the baseline period. Baselines of over 12 months will not be weather adjusted.

Savings Start: 
The day on which Cost Avoidance calculations will begin. Normally this is the day following the end of the baseline period, but in some cases you may have a ‘deadband’ period between end of baseline and beginning of savings calculations.

Balance Point Temperatures:
EnergyCAP defaults to 55°F which is generally a better default value than 65°F because most modern commercial buildings have heating/cooling switchover temperatures below 65°F. All degree day calculations in weather reports and Weather Manager degree day PowerView charts are based upon these settings.

Cost Avoidance Limits:
These global settings are used every time the Cost Avoidance savings processor is run, so if you change a value here you must re-calculate savings for all meters, all months in order for the change to take effect.

AUC Safety Min and Max:
The Cost Avoidance savings processor normally uses Average Unit Cost (AUC) of the current bill to calculate the value for savings due to Cost Avoidance. That is, if the current cost of electricity is $0.10/KWH, then a savings of 10,000 KWH will show a Cost Avoidance of $1,000. In some cases, however, the current AUC can be abnormal:

EXAMPLE: Due to a shut-down for construction or remodeling, the current bill was reduced from a “typical” consumption of 1,000 KWH to a mere 50 KWH. The bill cost of $50 is due mainly to service and base charges, so the calculated current bill AUC is skewed to $1.00/KWH. If the baseline bill for the same month was $95 for 1,000 KWH, the "normal" Cost Avoidance calculation would show 950 KWH saved x $1.00/KWH = $950 Cost Avoidance, which is clearly inaccurate, since the bill was only reduced from $95 to $50.

The AUC Safety min/max values define an acceptable ratio between the Average Unit Cost (AUC) of the current bill and the AUC of the corresponding baseline bill.  If the user-configurable AUC Safety min/max (minimum or maximum) thresholds are exceeded, the Cost Avoidance savings processor will use the AUC of the unadjusted baseline bill, rather than the AUC of the current bill, to calculate the Cost Avoidance value. This protocol helps preclude an unreasonable Cost Avoidance value, particularly when the current bill AUC may be legitimately questioned.

The default AUC Safety minimum setting is 0.5 and the default AUC maximum setting is 5.0.  With these default settings, if the AUC of the current bill is less than half of the AUC of the baseline bill, the Cost Avoidance savings processor will use the AUC of the unadjusted baseline bill when calculating Cost Avoidance.  Similarly, if the AUC of the current bill is more than five times greater than the AUC of the baseline bill, the Cost Avoidance processor will use the AUC of the unadjusted baseline bill to calculate Cost Avoidance.  If the ratio of the AUC of the current bill to the AUC of the corresponding baseline bill falls within the AUC ‘safety net’ defined by the min/max values, the Cost Avoidance savings processor will use the AUC of the current bill to calculate Cost Avoidance (unless overridden by a CAP adjustment).

Min Degree Day Per Day: 
This value can be used to stop weather adjustments in mild weather. When the daily average for degree days falls below the input value, a baseline weather adjustment for the month will not be made.

EXAMPLE:
In the base year there were 10 heating degree days in October; in the current year there were twenty heating degree days in the same month. Even though the weather was twice as cold from a degree day standpoint, you consider it to be irrelevant. If you set the minimum degree day per day value to 1.0, no weather adjustment will be made because the month must have at least 31 degree days (an average of 1.0 per day) to qualify for weather adjustments.