VISUALIZING ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND COST TRENDS USING VIRTUAL BILLING CYCLE CALCULATIONS AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

摘要

A utility consumption information system establishes a virtual billing cycle to enable a user to calculate a bill-to-date cost of utility service related to a certain site without waiting for a utility bill sent from an associated utility service provider. The utility consumption information system provides utility consumption information to a user in an informative user interface and enables the user to monitor utility consumption associated with the site. Moreover, the utility consumption information system allows the user to compare the utility consumption of the site with one or more references, and thus assists the user to determine whether a change in the utility consumption is due to an external factor or an internal factor.