10. Virtual meter impact on demand charge

Having a virtual meter by aggregating all the power consumptions of all four meters, reduces the peak demand as shown in the Figure below. Every month has less peak demand by a virtual meter compared to summing up all the peak demand of the individual meters during a billing cycle. A virtual meter could save money by aggregating all the meters resulting in a payment once during a billing cycle as opposed to several billed payments, in this case four times. On the other hand, virtual meter may lead to higher rate per unit kW for the demand charger. For example, the utility has charged Poker flat $14.29 per kW for GS-2 service while GS-3 would involve $22.89 per kW. So it is necessary to cost-benefit analysis to find saving could happen by implementing a virtual meter. On the other hand, GS-3 service has higher utility charge of $0.0294 per kWh while GS-2 has $0.06256 per kWh. The monthly power consumption for each meter and the total are shown in the figure below.

Peak power and benefit-cost analysis

• 10.1. Total aggregated power (kW) for demand charge based on month
  • 10.1.1. Monthly maximum peak power(kW) trend
  • 10.1.2. Density of maximum peak power (kW)
  • 10.1.3. Prediction performance for the last 3 months
• 10.2. Benefit-cost analysis of involving a virtual meter