Consumption Billing

 

Consumption billing for advanced meters can either be performed on the basis of profile values that were originally saved in the SAP system or on the basis of profile values that are found in an external system (such as an MDUS system).

Consumption billing can respond to billing rules that are announced at short notice, which are for example used in demand response programs.

For more information, see Conditional Billing.

Billing Based on Profile Values in the SAP System

When defining profiles whose profile values you want to transfer to SAP EDM, choose the storage location for the original profile values:

  • Profile values originate from EDM

    This storage location gives you full access to profile values as was previously also the case.

    or

  • Profile values originate from an external system; Copy in EDM

    Profile values that are only transferred to EDM as a copy are protected from manual changes. You cannot specify a replacement value procedure here.

You can either bill profile values in SAP EDM using the time-of-use (TOU) interface or the real-time-pricing (RTP) interface.

The TOU interface was designed specifically for billing consumption profiles for mass customers (residential customers and smaller commercial and industrial customers). You can use the TOU interface to model consumption periods and perform calculations. The function for retaining profile data in SAP EDM means that profile data can be managed efficiently for significant numbers (millions) of customers.

The RTP interface was designed for billing consumption profiles for interval and industrial customers. You can use the RTP interface to model consumption periods and perform complex calculations.

Recommendation Recommendation

We recommend that you use the time-of-use interface for consumption billing in the mass customer area, because this has been specially adjusted so that standardized billing rules can be applied to the mass customer market segment.

End of the recommendation.

For rates that can only be used for interval meters, use the RTP billing category to define whether you want to use an RTP interface or a TOU interface to bill the profile values.

If you use the rate in connection with a TOU interface, you must specify a TOU interface for each fact group.

If you want to use the TOU interface to bill profiles that are assigned to an interval meter with the role category Measurement, you must select the indicator Profile Can Be Billed with TOU Interface for these profiles. Otherwise, billing can only take place using an RTP interface.

For more information, see

Consumption Billing Based on Profile Values in the SAP System

Billing Based on Profile Values in an External System

In certain cases and according to the business model used by the energy company, it may be necessary to save profile data in an external system (such as an MDUS system). We generally recommend also transferring profile values to SAP EDM here and performing billing on the basis of profile values in the SAP system.

If you do not transfer profile values to SAP EDM, these values are not available for executing business processes. The only exception here is billing.

If profile values have been saved in an external system, you can import these to the SAP system in an aggregated format during billing using an enterprise service (profile values are calculated in an external system and the result of this is calculation is transferred to the SAP System). You can then perform billing based on these imported values using the time-of-use interface.

The disadvantage is that the billing process is split into two steps, which means it is not possible to perform billing immediately in dialog processing. A billing simulation is not supported. You must also ensure that the formulas you want to use in the time-of-use interface are implemented accordingly in the external system.

Select profiles whose profile values you do not want to copy to SAP EDM using the storage location of the original profile values Profile Values Originate from an External System.

For more information, see

Consumption Billing Based on Profile Values in an External System