(For part 1 of this series click here).
Good morning virtual students! Did you all study that homework? What? No? I tell you I never get no respect. I’ll look past it today as we’re only into the start of the new school year. Remember that. I knew I should have sprung a surprise quiz.
Wake up Phil, it’s just a dream. That was some wild Calculus class – still having dreams getting stuck on the first question of the final. Just kidding, I passed just fine.
So where were we? Oh yeah, Outage Alert e-mail sample. If you can remember from Part 1 of this series, then you will have noticed that the sample contained two highlighted items – specifically “Time period: 08/25 to 08/31” and “Electricity used: 117kWh”. The approximate cost and daily average values are derived from the aforementioned highlighted items, more or less, so we’ll skip those for now, or forever if I don’t get back to them.
Before we continue and discuss the highlighted items, let me show you a sample of the 
same information that is texted to my smart phone versus the e-mail format. As you can see, the date and time of the text message is the same as the e-mail – 09/01/2020 06:26PM. Both came from Central Maine Power, and you too can have these options when you enroll in FREE Usage Alerts. Heh. Ok, so this message has the same date range, 08/25-08/31, and the same total usage, 117 kWh, both as noted within the e-mail sample given in Part 1. Since the values match between the two, that’s a good thing. Really, it is. But there’s something still sinister under the hood, and it wasn’t even a dark and stormy night. e=mc^2. Oh, by the way, kWh, is short for kilowatt-hour. For those of you with smart watches, you can even have the text show up there. Heck, if you have any of the new smart cars, fridges, TVs, washing machines, crock pots, COVID analysis machines, toasters, faucets, thermostats, switches, golf clubs, vacuum cleaners, elevators, Christmas decorations, and lightning rods, and they have a built-in screen, then you can probably push alerts to those as well. Hmmm. Perhaps going a little off topic there. Sorry Mrs. Lowell.
I once stated I don’t like surprises when it comes to those things that involve math. There are other types of surprises I don’t mind, but that’s not important right now, so don’t bring it up here. For example, I already know that “The Three Stooges” really had 6 Stooges. The good ole days of TV. Hmmmph.
Seriously, let’s get back to being serious. Just like CMP (Central Maine Power) always is. Seriously.
Let me just concede that the date range and the usage values are fine. What? Wait, what is sinister in that? We’ll nothing, unless there is something. And there is.
Let’s look at it in reverse, shall we? So, first 117kWh. Where did that value come from? Well, you’d think it would come from your smart meter. Kinda. It has to start there right? Yup. Starts there and is further aggregated, processed, and stored by who-knows-how-many subsequent computer systems. Perhaps even multiple times. So, 117kWh is correct? Maybe.
Coming right out of left field, CMP also provides their smart meter customers additional free services which provide for 1) Viewing usage data online with CMP’s Energy Manager, and/or 2) Downloading usage data into two formats for external processing within Microsoft Excel for example. I use both of these services, and as you would like to think, the values should match. Oh gosh, I almost forgot…everyone eventually gets a bill, whether they like it or not.
We’ll forgo discussing the downloading service for now, and start with CMP’s Energy Manager service which is available online once you log into your CMP account. So let’s login and check it out. Vroom, fast forward, we’re on the right web page and here is the data for each day 8/25 through 8/31 as seven separate screenshot snippets. Say that 10 times fast – seven separate screenshot snippets,…
There you have it, but yeah it’s a little blurry, so here are the set of values for 8/25 through 8/31: (15.6, 14.0, 15.5, 13.8, 19.4, 22.5, 15.5). Add those up and it comes to 116.3. Yeah, summing wrong, summing right! LOL! 116.3 does not equal 117. Some smart eyed readers might recognize that the value of 117 can be explained as CEILING[116.3]=117. The CEILING function will return the smallest integer value that is greater than or equal to a number. And that’s perfectly fine to do, and I’m ok with that. That is, if everything else was fine in data land. What? Where are you going now? So, yeah, where am I heading? Probably something on the order of “location, location, location.” Or is it “details, details, details”?
Ok, I must confess, those 7 day snippets didn’t show the whole picture! Here is that picture, which again is data applicable to me. This is your homework, so peruse the numbered circles, and we’ll pick up there next time.
(Note: Click here to go to Part 3 of this Series.)