utility rates

SAM nicely accesses utility rates available on the open EI database. However, some demand rates are denominated in $/kW per day versus $/kW per month. SAM imports the daily demand charges without converting them to monthly values. Is it true that SAM is not smart enough to recognize these as daily values, and that you must manually convert daily demand values to monthly values? That is, a $0.50/kW per day must be transformed into a ~$15/kW per month value by hand?

Dear Randy,

Yes. SAM assumes that the demand rates are in $/kW per month, so you will need to convert those values.

In general, it is important to review the rate data from OpenEI when you import it to ensure it is correct as you have done.

Could you tell me which rate structure you downloaded? We may need to make some changes to SAM to handle this particular case if it is becoming more common.

Best regards,
Paul.