The Utility Accounting Viewlet allows the user to import their utility bills and display monthly electricity, gas, and water usage statistics. The numbers are shown in a chart which gives total resource consumption numbers for each utility, the cost per month, as well as the cost per unit of consumption. The viewlet also presents the figures in interactive pie and column charts to help the user visualize their respective energy usage over time. This viewlet is a great resource for tracking energy usage and associated spending over time.
Monthly data can be added or removed from the energy analysis by checking or un-checking each location’s corresponding box, located on the right of the viewlet. Electricity, gas, and water can all be sorted, and displayed in an interactive pie and column chart.
Utility Accounting Configuration
Configuring the Utility Accounting Viewlet is done through a .csv file import feature within Workbench (see below). While automatic bill import is custom, it can be arranged if desired. Otherwise, a Systems Integrator will be required to set up and import histories for water, gas, and electric data from monthly utility bills. Configuration within Periscope only requires the user to select from a list of locations.
Utility Accounting Initial Setup
In order to use the Utility Accounting Viewlet, utility data must exist in the NiagaraAX station. The most common way to import data into NiagaraAX is by importing .csv files. The Utility Mapper can be found under the PeriscopeService of NiagaraAX, and comes preconfigured to import example data. The user will need to configure their own .csv file based on their utility data, and replace the file on the station with their newly created one. There are several options in Workbench when importing the file.
Status - Displays the status of the UtilityMapper, “{ok}” means working correctly.
Fault Cause - If the Status of the object is “{fault}”, this property will explain what error occurred.
Csv File - This property points to the .csv file that will be imported.
Execution Time - This property determines how often the UtilityMapper will reload the CSV file. It can be set to manually update (only user can force an update), or to update periodically on any time frame.
Timestamp Format - This is the format of the Timestamp column of the CSV file. full documentation here: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/javajava/text/SimpleDateFormat.html.
Example Timestamp - This property changes every time the Timestamp Format string is modified to show an example timestamp.
Timestamp Column Index - This property points to the column index of the timestamp in the .csv file
file (forced to 1).
Device Row Index - Often when importing CSV files, there is a need to name the “device” of each history. This can be cumbersome when using other methods (like the File Driver) due to manually having to set each history’s device name. This property tells us which row of the .csv file will be used for naming the “device” of your history.
Static Device Name - If any text is entered in this property, Device Row Index will be ignored and all histories will be given this device name.
History Name Row Index - This property says which row to use for naming the histories.
Skip Rows - This property designates how many rows from the top there are before actual data exists.