# Savings dashboard

> What your installation returns: the energy cost without an installation against the actual energy cost, where the return comes from, and the contract terms it is computed with.

Source: https://voltmasters.io/en/docs/voltmasters-platform/dashboards/savings-dashboard/

The **Savings** dashboard shows what the installation of a project returns. It compares two amounts for the period you select: what the energy would have cost if all consumption had come off the grid, and what it actually cost. The difference is the return of the solar panels, the battery and the steering together.

Open it from the project menu under **Analysis**, **Reports**, **Savings**. The page itself is titled **Return**. Every user with access to the project can open it: clients, installers and administrators.

> **Warning**
>
> These amounts cover the **energy component** only, at the prices of the energy contract entered for the project, including the fees and costs configured in it. They are not your invoice.
> 
> Grid fees, levies, excise duties, your supplier's charges and VAT are on your invoice but not in this calculation. The platform does not model imbalance either: imbalance revenue follows later.

### Choosing a period

-   **Month**: one calendar month. The arrows step to the previous or next month. A running month is computed up to now.
-   **Custom**: any range of days you pick in the date picker.

The **Export** button downloads the figures of the selected period as a CSV file, see [Export](https://voltmasters.io/en/docs/voltmasters-platform/dashboards/savings-dashboard/#export).

### The sum

![The top of the savings dashboard for August: the return on the installation in large green figures, the comparison with the previous period, the energy cost without an installation, the actual energy cost with grid import and grid export underneath, the green certificates, and the self-sufficiency and grid-independent time tiles.](https://voltmasters.io/assets/docs/savings-dashboard-summary.webp)

*The return of one month, with the sum it is computed from and the exchange with the grid underneath.*

The top of the dashboard is a sum you can check line by line:

| Line | What it is |
| --- | --- |
| **Energy cost without an installation** | The consumption of the site in every quarter hour, valued at that quarter's consumption price, as if no solar panels, battery or steering were installed. |
| **Actual energy cost** | What the site actually paid the grid, net: the grid import cost minus the grid export revenue. When the export earned more than the import cost, the line says how much you earned from the grid. |
| **Grid import** | All energy the grid meter recorded as import, with the volume in kWh and the average price in €/MWh. The average is the amount divided by the volume, so it runs higher when most import fell in expensive quarters. |
| **Grid export** | All energy the grid meter recorded as export, with its volume and average price. Quarters with a negative price are included. On a project whose PV inverters cannot be steered, a line underneath says how much was paid to inject while the price was negative. |
| **Return on your installation** | The energy cost without an installation minus the actual energy cost. |

Grid import and grid export each show a volume and a price, the same two figures an invoice lists per direction, so you can hold them next to the invoice of your supplier.

Under the return, the dashboard shows the difference with the **previous period**. That period is equally long and lies right before the one you selected. A running month is compared with the same number of days of the month before, so halfway through a month the dashboard does not open on a drop that is not there. A month that has fully passed is compared with the whole month before. When the previous period has no data at all, for example because the project did not exist yet, no comparison is shown.

**Green certificates** are shown beside the sum, not inside it. They are the energy produced multiplied by the price per MWh configured on each inverter, and you earn them however the steering uses that energy. The line only appears when a price per MWh is configured on at least one inverter.

Two tiles follow the sum:

-   **Self-sufficiency**: the share of the consumption that came from your own production.
-   **Grid-independent time**: the share of the time the site took at most 5% of its consumption from the grid.

### Where the return comes from

![The breakdown of the return: a coloured bar with the share of every post, then Solar panels with Avoided purchase and Injection from solar, Battery and steering with Stored surplus and Charging and discharging, and the avoided export at negative prices as a separate line.](https://voltmasters.io/assets/docs/savings-dashboard-ladder.webp)

*The return split into the solar panels and the battery with the steering.*

The return is split into two steps, each with its own posts. The bar at the top shows the share of every post.

| Post | What it is |
| --- | --- |
| **Solar panels**: **Avoided purchase** | Your own production used the moment it was made, valued at the consumption price you did not have to pay the grid at that moment. |
| **Solar panels**: **Injection from solar** | What the surplus of the panels earned on the grid, net. The volume shows which part of the total grid export came straight from the panels. Export that came out of the battery sits under Battery and steering, so no kilowatt-hour counts twice. |
| **Battery and steering**: **Stored surplus** | Surplus that went into the battery instead of onto the grid, valued at the export price you gave up. Where that price was negative, it is the export cost you avoided. |
| **Battery and steering**: **Charging and discharging** | The result of charging when power is cheap and using it when it is expensive. Over a short period this can be negative: the battery may have charged now to earn it back later, and every cycle loses a small part. |
| **Not attributable (remainder)** | The part of the return the posts above do not explain. It is only shown when it is not € 0. An amount here means the metered energy balance does not close, for example battery charge that no measured production accounts for. |

The Battery and steering step only appears on projects with a battery.

**Avoided export at negative prices** is shown underneath the posts. It is what you did not have to pay because production was throttled while the export price was negative. Energy that was never produced cannot be metered, so this figure is an estimate based on the production forecast for those hours.

### Return over time

![The Return over time chart: one stacked bar per day of August, green for the solar panels and purple for the battery and steering, with two days where the battery part drops below zero.](https://voltmasters.io/assets/docs/savings-dashboard-chart.webp)

*One bar per day, split into the two steps of the return.*

The chart shows the return per day, stacked per step. A day where the battery and the steering cost more than they returned stays below the zero line, so it reads as a loss instead of disappearing behind the solar bar.

### Per source

![The Solar panels card: produced, used on-site, used directly, self-consumption, production revenue and green certificate revenue, with a daily chart of the production revenue and the green certificate revenue stacked.](https://voltmasters.io/assets/docs/savings-dashboard-solar.webp)

*The solar panels card, with green certificates configured on the inverters.*

Below the chart, every source of the installation has its own card with its return for the period, a few key figures and a daily chart:

-   **Solar panels** and **Wind turbines**: **Produced**, **Used on-site**, **Used directly**, **Self-consumption**, **Production revenue** and, when configured, **Green certificate revenue**. Used on-site is higher than Used directly because it also includes energy that went through the battery first, and that return sits with the battery.
-   **Battery and steering**: **Charged**, **Discharged**, **Avg. charge price** and **Avg. discharge price**. Charging with your own solar counts at the export price it would otherwise have earned. A discharge price above the charge price means the battery stored cheap and used expensive.

![The Battery and steering card: charged and discharged energy, the average charge price and the average discharge price, with a daily chart of the battery return.](https://voltmasters.io/assets/docs/savings-dashboard-battery.webp)

*The battery card, with the average price it charged at and the average value of what it delivered.*

### Calculation basis

![The Calculation basis section: the contract type and parameters for consumption and injection, the price data coverage and measurement data coverage, the link to the energy contract, and the footnotes of the dashboard.](https://voltmasters.io/assets/docs/savings-dashboard-calculation-basis.webp)

*The contract terms every amount on the dashboard is computed with.*

At the bottom, **Calculation basis** lists the terms of the energy contract that were in force during the selected period, per direction: the contract type and the parameters that type uses, such as the scale factor, the fee and the distribution cost. These values sit inside every price, so if they differ from the real contract, every amount on the dashboard differs with them.

-   A field that was not filled in on the contract is marked **platform default**: the platform computed with its own default value there.
-   A warning appears when a scale factor other than 1 is set. It multiplies every market price, so every amount shifts with it.
-   When no contract, or a contract for only part of the period, was found, the section says so. The platform default values apply to the rest.
-   **View energy contract** opens the [energy contract](https://voltmasters.io/en/docs/voltmasters-platform/project-settings/energy-contracts/) of the project.

Two coverage figures show how much of the period could be computed:

-   **Price data coverage**: the quarter hours with a price. A quarter without a price is skipped, because its energy cannot be valued.
-   **Measurement data coverage**: the quarter hours with a grid meter reading. A quarter without one is skipped, because without grid import and export all production would count as directly consumed.

Both count against the calendar quarter hours of the period up to now, so missing data stays visible. The footnotes under the section repeat what is and is not included, the share of the period that was computed, and the model version and time of the calculation.

### How the calculation works

Every quarter hour is valued at its own consumption and injection price. Those prices come from the day-ahead market price and the parameters of the energy contract, as described in [Energy price calculation](https://voltmasters.io/en/docs/voltmasters-platform/project-settings/energy-price-calculation/). The reference is the same site with the same consumption, without solar panels, battery and steering.

> **Note**
>
> Prices are calculated and stored while a quarter hour is still in the near future, using the contract in force at that moment, and they are never recalculated afterwards. If the contract changed during the period, the amounts already reflect the old contract before the change and the new one after it.

### Export

The **Export** button downloads a CSV file of the selected period with:

-   the sum: energy cost without an installation, actual energy cost and the return;
-   where the return comes from, with amounts and volumes per post;
-   the exchange with the grid per direction: amount, volume and average price, and on a project whose PV inverters cannot be steered, the injection split into quarters with a positive and a negative price;
-   a detail per quarter hour, including grid import and grid export in kWh and the consumption and injection price;
-   the coverage of the calculation.

With the quarter hour detail, the file is enough to check the figures against a settlement of your supplier. Every card also has its own download button for the data of its chart.

### When the dashboard is empty or shows a warning

-   **Fill in the energy contract first**: the project has no energy contract, so there are no prices to compute with. **Set up the energy contract** opens the contract form.
-   **No data for this period**: there are no energy prices for the selected period yet, or no grid meter data, so the return cannot be computed reliably.
-   On a project with [external control](https://voltmasters.io/en/docs/voltmasters-platform/project-settings/external-control/), a warning at the top names the partner. The dashboard only uses the day-ahead prices from the energy contract, so check whether the project is settled on imbalance or on day-ahead. What the external steering earns is settled by the partner.