Utility Rate Analyzer

Tools for parsing and analyzing residential electricity rates using URDB and ZIP-code utility mappings.

Features

• Filters active residential tariffs
• Removes low-income, EV, TOU, and multi-unit rates
• Computes effective cents per kWh for a 1 kW average household load
• Designed for Massachusetts utilities

External Data Files Required (Not Tracked in Git)

This repository intentionally does NOT store large external datasets. You must download the following files manually before running the code.

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1. ZIP Code to Utility Mapping Files

Required files:

• iou_zipcodes_2024.csv
• non_iou_zipcodes_2024.csv

These files map ZIP codes to electric utilities.

Download them from your source (EIA, OpenEI, state datasets, or your pre-existing archive) and place both files in the project root directory.

The analysis code expects both files to be present locally.

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2. Utility Rates Database (URDB CSV)

Required file:

• usurdb.csv

This is the full OpenEI Utility Rate Database export (typically over 150 MB).

You can download it from OpenEI using the Utility Rates API:

https://apps.openei.org/services/doc/rest/util_rates/

Or via the direct "Download Full Approved US Rates" option on OpenEI.

Once downloaded:

1. If the file is compressed (for example, .csv.gz), extract it.
2. Rename the extracted file to: usurdb.csv
3. Place it in the project root directory.

This file is intentionally excluded from Git because it exceeds GitHub's file size limits.

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Important Notes

• These CSV files are REQUIRED for the parsing and analysis scripts to run.
• They are listed in .gitignore and will not be committed to Git.
• Each user must download these datasets independently.