MAISY Utility Customer Databases
MAISY®(Market Analysis and Information System)Utility Customer Databases are the energy industry's most widely-used source of energy use and hourly loads data.
MAISY Utility Customer Databases include energy use, hourly loads, building, equipment, operating, occupant and other energy-related information for individual commercial , industrial and residential customers records including 8760 hourly loads for individual end uses.
MAISY Databases have been developed from information on more than 2 million individual utility customers throughout the US and Canada, providing a representative sample of residential, commercial and industrial customers for cities, counties, utility service areas, states and provinces.
Large customer samples within geographic areas maintain the diversity of actual customer populations, providing a more accurate analysis of customers, markets and market segments compared to "average" customer information. (for more information on this topic see Avoiding "Prototype" and Average Load Data Aggregation Errors).
Additional MAISY Utility Customer database topics.
2009 Database Updates
Energy Efficiency Potentials Databases
Database Characteristics Summary
MAISY Software
Customized Data Products
MAISY Versus "Prototype" Data
2009 Database Updates Now Available!
2009 commercial, industrial, and residential databases are now available. These updates include new information on utility customers in individual cities, counties, utility service areas, states and provinces. Extensions include:
- Utility customer energy use and population characteristics as of January 1,2009
- Additional optional commercial business detail
- 8760 building and hourly loads for each database record
- 8760 end-use hourly loads for each database record
- Building and end-use energy efficiency potentials for each database record
- Other refinements based on new data sources
Energy Efficiency Potentials Included in 2009 Updates
For the first time, 2009 MAISY databases provide energy efficiency measures for each customer record and for individual end uses such as space heating, air conditioning, lighting and other end uses
Both current efficiency values and potential savings available with efficiency measures and programs are provided. See MAISY Energy Efficiency Databases for More Detail
These data are now available in their most detailed form as an option in city, county, state and utility MAISY databases. Each database building record now includes end-use (heating, air conditioning, lighting, etc.) energy-efficiency measures and potentials and hourly load savings potentials. These data items can be used to:
- Evaluate energy-efficiency potentials for cities, counties, service areas and states
- Identify and evaluate end-use energy-efficiency opportunities
- Develop energy-efficiency programs
- Determine energy-efficiency targets
- Identify target markets for energy-efficiency services
MAISY Utility Customer Database Characteristics Summary
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| Individual Customer Data | Geographic Detail |
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| Detailed Energy Use Information | Other Customer Data |
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| Software Analysis and Data Access Capabilities | |
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MAISY Utility Customer Databases have expanded considerably since their introduction in 1995. The first databases included survey data from 15,000 customers providing only regional detail and annual energy use characteristics. Current databases have been developed with information from more than two million individual utility customer records throughout the US and Canada providing geographic detail down to individual service areas and energy use detail to 8760 hourly loads by end use. Hundreds of data sources are used to develop the utility customer databases. MAISY Databases are widely recognized as the most authoritative source of utility customer energy use information available and have been used by utilities, energy service providers, energy service companies, equipment manufacturers, research organizations and other organizations interested in utility customer energy use. MAISY data have also been used to support US Department of Energ appliance and equipment efficiency standards development.
MAISY Databases provide up-to-date information on industrial, commercial and residential customers, customer segments and market segments in each city, county, state and utility service area market. Databases reflect information from hundreds of different customer and market data sources including onsite customer surveys, utility and fuel supplier billing data, government, association and proprietary data, and other sources including ongoing Jackson Associates customer data development. Databases are continuously updated to reflect important recent trends in the most important determinants of residential, commercial and industrial energy use.
MAISY Databases are scalable; that is, any subset of customer variables or geographic areas can be extracted from the full databases and provided to clients in customer database development.
Customer-detailed information includes energy use, 8760 hourly loads, end-use energy use and hourly loads, building, equipment, operating, occupant, and other energy-related information for each commercial , industrial and residential customers record. The following links document database variables included in the Commercial, Industrial and Residential MAISY Databases in more detail:
List of Commercial
Database VariablesList of Industrial
Database VariablesList of
Residential Database VariablesMAISY Software
MAISY Databases Software applies a patented data exploration process to answer specific questions with mouse-clicks on charts and permits users to navigate databases, exploring customer characteristics and relationships. Information can be viewed in chart or table form at any level of aggregation ranging from an individual customer to all customers in a city, county, service area, state or province. MAISY provides detailed reports and exports data to other software systems. The software runs from desktop or network systems.
All customer and hourly load data can be exported from MAISY systems into into comma-delimited files (CSV) which can be read by Excel and nearly all other data-related software.
Customized MAISY Data Products
We frequently provide subsets of utility customer buidling, operating, equipment, energy use, hourly loads and other data for specific client needs. Contact Jackson Associates for a price quote.
MAISY Individual Customer Data Versus "Prototype or Typical" Data
The MAISY system permits users to select individual customers or customer segments based on dozens or even on hundreds of customer characteristics. Pick any combination of business type, floor space, operating schedules, space heating fuel, year of construction and many other variables to zero in on a specific customer type or market segment.
What about other load-profiling systems that offer 12, 36 , 75 or some other limited number of fixed customer segments? To represent 13 commercial business types; electric, gas and oil heat; small, medium and large buildings requires 117 prototypes or "typical" buildings. Add in age categories and more than 200 "fixed prototypes" would be required, well beyond the scope of these "fixed" systems. With MAISY, customer and segment selections provide hundreds of possible definitions with nearly unlimited choices of customer characteristics. Only MAISY provides the detail and flexibility required to reflect the extensive customer and segment detail required in competitive markets.
Relying on "prototype and typical" is similar to analyzing a "typical" family which consists of two adults and 0.6 children - it may reflect an average but it may also provide misleading results when used to understand customers, to develop programs to fit the needs of individual customer segments, to evaluate the profitability of serving these customers or to evaluate markets for new technolgies.
Sources of load profile data which rely on fixed customer segments (e.g. large, medium and small offices) typically develop hourly load data with engineering models (e.g., DOE2) of a single "prototype" building. The aggregate nature of these representations misses the variation that exists among individual buildings within these segments, hiding important market information. For instance, a particular electric rate structure may provide a competitive profit based on an entire segment's single prototype load profile; however, analysis of subsets of the segment (which can be performed with MAISY but not with the "prototype or typical" load profile approach) may reveal significant diversity in profit levels across customer sub-segments such that some customers are provided power at a loss while profit margins on other customers result in cream-skimming targets for other suppliers.
Similarly, evaluating markets for new technolgies or potentials for energy efficiency initiatives requires consideration of the full range of customers within a market or utility service area. The average load profile may reflect little potential hiding the fact that a significant portion of the market with different load characteristics provides great potential. For more information on this topic see Avoiding "Prototype" and Average Load Data Aggregation Errors.