Resources & Insights

The Tariform blog

Practical writing on utility-bill data, microgrid savings analysis, and the messy realities of behind-the-meter accounting.

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Data Extraction

Utility Bill Data Extraction: From PDF to Pro-Forma, Proposal, or Audit

Turn utility-bill PDFs into line-itemized, tariff-aware, auditable rate data — and unblock the project-finance, consulting and solar-sales workflows that depend on it.

By Peter Pflaum11 min read

Savings Verification

Utility Bill Verification: Prove What Your Solar + Storage Actually Saved

Prove what your solar + storage portfolio actually saved — the actual bill against a reconstructed counterfactual, line item by line item, every site, every month.

By Peter Pflaum9 min read

Data Extraction

Why Generic OCR Fails on Utility Bills (And What Extraction Actually Requires)

Reading a utility bill and extracting one are different problems. The five places generic OCR breaks silently on C&I bills — and what domain-aware extraction does instead.

By Peter Pflaum8 min read

All articles

Savings Verification

Solar PPA Savings True-Up: Guaranteed vs. Actual Savings

A savings true-up settles whether a solar PPA delivered its guarantee — the all-in cost of the PPA payment plus the utility bill, against the counterfactual. Why the counterfactual decides the settlement, and where true-ups go soft.

June 2, 20267 min

Data Extraction

How to Extract Demand Charges from a Utility Bill

Demand charges are the largest line on a C&I bill and the hardest to extract — ratchets, coincident vs. non-coincident demand, mid-cycle splits. What a complete extraction has to capture, and where it breaks.

May 30, 20267 min

Savings Verification

Bill Verification vs. IPMVP M&V: Which Measures Solar Savings?

IPMVP measures energy saved; bill verification measures dollars saved against the actual bill. Where the two diverge, why they're usually complementary, and which question each one answers.

May 27, 20266 min

Savings Verification

How to Reconstruct Load for Solar Savings Verification (When Interval Data Is Messy)

Load reconstruction rebuilds the gross load a site would have drawn without its system — the input the counterfactual rests on. Where it breaks on real data, and how to handle the uncertainty honestly.

May 21, 20267 min

Savings Verification

What Is Counterfactual Billing? The Hard Half of Savings Verification

The counterfactual bill is what a site would have paid with no solar or storage — the second number savings verification needs. Why it's the hard half, and how it's built.

May 16, 20266 min

Savings Verification

Modeled vs. Verified Solar Savings: Why the Footnote Fails

Modeled and verified savings match at close, then drift. Why "modeled, not verified" stops being defensible at audit, refinancing, and dispute — and what replaces it.

May 11, 20267 min

Savings Verification

Why Your Solar Is Producing on Plan but Saving Less Than Projected

Producing the modeled kWh but saving below projection is usually a measurement gap, not a failing asset. The causes monitoring can't see — and how to tell which one is affecting a site.

May 6, 20267 min

Utility Bills

Demand Charge Ratchets, Explained (With a Worked Example)

A demand ratchet lets one high-demand month set a billing floor that follows you for a year. How a ratchet is calculated, why it exists, and how to get out from under one.

May 1, 20266 min

Utility Bills

What Is a Demand Charge? (And How to Reduce It)

On a C&I bill the demand charge is often the single largest line. What it is, why it dominates, the types you'll see, and the levers that actually reduce it.

April 27, 20267 min

Utility Bills

How to Read a Commercial Utility Bill: A Line-by-Line Guide

A C&I utility bill reads in three layers — header, line items, totals. Every charge type defined, plus the estimated reads, rate changes, and ratchets that make it harder than it looks.

April 22, 20268 min

Project Finance

How to Build a Defensible Solar Pro-Forma Baseline

A solar pro-forma rests on one number it rarely interrogates: the baseline. The four ways it goes soft, how to build one you can defend line by line, and the intake tax that makes it hard.

April 17, 20267 min

Data Extraction

Why Generic OCR Fails on Utility Bills (And What Extraction Actually Requires)

Reading a utility bill and extracting one are different problems. The five places generic OCR breaks silently on C&I bills — and what domain-aware extraction does instead.

April 13, 20268 min

Savings Verification

Utility Bill Verification: Prove What Your Solar + Storage Actually Saved

Prove what your solar + storage portfolio actually saved — the actual bill against a reconstructed counterfactual, line item by line item, every site, every month.

April 8, 20269 min

Data Extraction

Utility Bill Data Extraction: From PDF to Pro-Forma, Proposal, or Audit

Turn utility-bill PDFs into line-itemized, tariff-aware, auditable rate data — and unblock the project-finance, consulting and solar-sales workflows that depend on it.

April 4, 202611 min