Energy Costs

Log electricity and gas costs each month, get automatic PV self-consumption and self-sufficiency calculations, and track your solar payback progress.

How the Energy area is organised

The Energy area is split into four sub-tabs so you get to the right topic quickly:

Overview — the key figures of the latest month, the energy cost history, the self-sufficiency ratio, the yearly overview (totals per calendar year, including the effective working price across the whole year, excluding the base fee) and – right at the end – the spot-market comparison.
Record — the month form plus the list of all recorded months for editing or deleting.
Solar — PV payback tracking and your solar investments.
Billing — advance payments & annual settlement per energy source. You edit each source's tariff right inside its settlement box via the pencil icon (including tariff changes that can also be scheduled for the future); add new meters via the + in the header.

The energy cost history shows a 12-month window – by default including three months of forecast ahead. Use the arrows to page back to older months (like the spot-market comparison). Months not recorded yet (the upcoming months, the current month, gaps) appear as a forecast: faded and dashed, with energy costs taken from the same month of the previous year (otherwise estimated from the average) – plus the vehicle costs already logged for that month. The forecast also accounts for PV savings (projected from the same month last year) and can be hidden entirely via a "with / no forecast" toggle.

If you have a PV system, the Grid costs / without PV toggle above the chart additionally shows your computed costs without photovoltaics: per recorded month as a green segment on top of the column. The full column height then equals the cost without PV, and the green top part is the saving carried by your PV. The view is off by default (only the real grid costs); the total saving within the window is shown permanently as a green line below the chart anyway. The exact same chart – including the toggle and the green PV segment – is mirrored in the Statistics area.

Energy sources: electricity, gas and oil

Besides electricity, the month form lets you optionally record gas and oil (heating oil) too. Both sections are collapsed and only surface once you fill them in – if you only track electricity, everything else stays hidden (no empty gas/oil columns in the overviews).

For gas and oil you can enter either the details or a total amount:

Gas: consumption (kWh), working price (€/kWh), base fee (€/month) and monthly advance (€). When consumption and working price are present, Evensum computes the gas cost from them (consumption × working price + base fee). Alternatively just enter the gas cost as a total amount.
Oil: quantity (litres), price (€/litre), optional base fee and advance – or, again, a total "oil cost".

As soon as you record an advance for a source, Evensum automatically manages a dedicated fixed-cost item for its meter (see below) and it gets its own annual settlement in the Billing tab – broken down into advances paid, projected remaining months and actual costs. Tracked gas and oil costs also appear as their own series in the cost history and as their own column in the yearly overview.

Multiple meters

Every reading belongs to a meter, and each meter belongs to exactly one energy source (electricity, gas or oil). For every source you use there is a default meter (e.g. "Electricity", "Gas") – normally you don't have to think about it.

You can, however, add more meters when you want to bill a source separately – for example a second electricity meter "Heat pump" with its own heat-pump tariff. Each meter has:

its own readings (one row per month and meter) and
its own tariff (working price, base fee, advance).

Add new meters in the Billing tab via the + in the header of "Advance payments & annual settlement" (source + name). You can also rename or delete a meter via the pencil icon of its settlement box (deleting removes all of that meter's readings too). In the overviews, the cost history and the statistics, all meters of a source are summed per month – so the totals stay correct no matter how many meters you keep.

Monthly logging

In the Record tab you enter your monthly figures. Use the small + at the top right to pick a meter (grouped by energy source) and open its short form; without a selection, only the list of recorded months (grouped by meter) stays visible below. Editing a month (tap it in the list) opens the matching form prefilled; while a form is open you can switch between your meters via the meter tabs. Each meter is saved independently: recording gas leaves the same month's electricity and oil values untouched, and vice versa.

For electricity you enter:

Grid draw in kWh (electricity you drew from the public grid)
Total consumption in kWh (everything actually used in the household) – only visible with a solar system: without PV it equals grid import and is applied automatically
PV yield in kWh (what your solar panels produced, if you have any)
Feed-in in kWh (the portion of PV yield sent back to the grid)
Electricity price in €/kWh
Base fee for your electricity connection
Feed-in tariff per kWh

For gas it's enough to enter gas consumption (kWh), working price, base fee and advance – or alternatively the month's total amount. For oil / heating oil likewise the quantity (litres), price per litre, base fee and advance, or the total amount.

Meter readings instead of consumption

No smart energy meter? Switch the entry mode in the month form to "Meter reading" (Evensum remembers the choice per meter). You then simply enter the current reading from the meter – Evensum derives consumption automatically as the difference to the last recorded reading:

Electricity: reading of the grid-import meter (kWh); with a solar system also the readings of the PV-generation and feed-in meters. Total consumption is derived from them (import + PV yield − feed-in).
Gas: the gas meter reading in m³ plus the conversion factor kWh/m³ (calorific value × volume factor – grid-operator specific, printed on your gas bill, typically ~10–11). The factor is stored on the meter and used for cost calculation.
Oil has no meter – quantity entry stays direct here.

The first recorded reading is the baseline (no consumption is computed for that month yet). Below each field Evensum shows the last known reading. Backfilling and corrections are fine: if you change a reading, Evensum also recomputes the following month automatically. If a meter is replaced (new reading lower than the old one), the month counts as 0 instead of negative – in that case enter the changeover month's consumption directly once.

If you don't have a solar system, simply leave the "I have a solar system" toggle off in the electricity form — Evensum then hides all PV fields (PV yield, feed-in, feed-in tariff) and the self-sufficiency ratio, and treats the household as a pure grid consumer. The toggle remembers your choice for future months.

For every source, the price, base fee and advance are automatically prefilled from the applicable tariff and stay editable per month: if a scheduled tariff change (see below) applies to the month you are recording, the fields inherit its terms; otherwise they come from the most recently recorded month. You can also store these conditions in the Billing tab via "Change electricity/gas/oil tariff" effective from a chosen month – the change updates all already recorded months from that point onwards, and future months inherit the values automatically.

Recording your actual electricity costs precisely

Your monthly figures are only as accurate as your readings. There are two ways:

Read the meter: note the meter reading once a month and enter the difference as grid draw. Free, but manual.
Measure automatically with a small metering device — then you always have exact numbers (grid draw, feed-in, even in real time) and just copy them over:

Advertising notice: The following product links are affiliate links (Amazon). Buying through them supports Evensum at no extra cost to you.

Shelly Pro 3EM (approx. €60) – mounts on the DIN rail in the meter cabinet and measures all three phases directly on the supply line (including PV feed-in), in real time over Wi-Fi/LAN. The most accurate route – but installation belongs in the hands of a qualified electrician, as it involves the main supply line.
Optical reader (bitShake SmartMeterReader) (approx. €40) – attaches magnetically to the optical interface of your digital meter and reads its kWh counter contactlessly. No electrician needed, fitted in 5 minutes – ideal if you just want to grab the official meter reading automatically.

Both provide the consumption values you enter here in the month form. For a dynamic tariff, additionally enter the actual bill amount (see below) – from which Evensum derives your real working price.

What gets calculated automatically

From this raw data, Evensum derives several figures every month:

PV self-consumption = yield − feed-in
Electricity costs = grid draw × electricity price + base fee − feed-in tariff income
Costs without PV = total consumption × electricity price + base fee (what you'd pay without a solar system)
PV savings = costs without PV − actual electricity costs
Self-sufficiency ratio = (total consumption − grid import) ÷ total consumption — the share of your consumption that did not come from the grid. Deliberately grid-based: with a battery, pure PV self-consumption can arithmetically exceed consumption (charging losses, time shifts).
Effective price per kWh = actual electricity costs ÷ total consumption

Worked example for one month:

Figure	Value
Grid draw	126 kWh
Total consumption	184 kWh
PV self-consumption	63 kWh
Electricity price	€0.31/kWh
Base fee	€15.77

Electricity costs   = 126 kWh × €0.31/kWh + €15.77  ≈ €54.84
Costs without PV     = 184 kWh × €0.31/kWh + €15.77  ≈ €72.81
PV savings           = €72.81 − €54.84                ≈ €17.97
Self-sufficiency     = (184 − 126) kWh ÷ 184 kWh       ≈ 32%

That month, the solar system saved around €17.97, and roughly a third of total consumption did not come from the grid.

Solar payback tracking

If you've invested in a photovoltaic system, you'll eventually want to know: when has it paid for itself? For this, the Solar investments area lets you record each purchase individually, for example:

Investment	Amount
Balcony power plant	€1,199
Battery storage	€1,299
Mounting & installation	€180
Total	€2,678

Evensum adds up these investment costs and subtracts the cumulative PV savings from all months logged so far. This gives you an immediate view of how much of the investment has already been "earned back."

The app also projects a payback date: based on the average PV savings over the last 12 months, Evensum estimates how many more months it will take until the system is fully paid off. If you're saving an average of €45 per month, for instance, and €900 remains outstanding, that works out to roughly 20 more months until break-even.

The Cumulative savings chart shows a 12-month window; use the arrows to page back through earlier periods. The values stay cumulative from the start – only the visible slice of the timeline shifts, so the curve never drops back to zero.

Advance payments and annual settlement

In addition to meter readings, you can record your monthly advance payment for each month — the fixed amount you transfer to your utility. Evensum then automatically manages a dedicated fixed-cost item per meter with an advance (e.g. "Electricity – Abschlag"). The item's name, amount and interval are managed by the energy module — the amount always follows the meter's currently applicable advance. In the Recurring area you configure its split, account and category just like for any other item; that way the advance also flows into the settlement payment and the monthly deposits per account. You cannot delete the item directly — it disappears automatically once you delete the meter or no longer keep an advance. Important: if you additionally track electricity as a manual fixed cost, it would be counted twice — the app warns you when it detects this.

From advances and actual electricity costs, Evensum builds the "Advance payments & annual settlement" card:

Balance as of today = sum of advances paid − actual costs of the recorded months. A positive balance means you have paid in more than you have used so far.
Year-end projection: missing months are estimated — preferably using the same month of the previous year (which captures the seasonality of heating periods and summer), otherwise using the average of the months recorded so far. This yields a projected refund or back payment for your next annual statement.
Scheduled advances are already factored in: if you have stored a future advance (e.g. "from August €60"), Evensum projects each remaining month with the advance in effect then (July still with the old one, August–December with the new one) — so the projected refund/back payment stays accurate.

That way you can already see in summer whether your advance is set correctly — and have your utility adjust it before a large back payment builds up.

Dynamic tariffs and spot market comparison

If you are on a dynamic electricity tariff (hourly exchange prices, e.g. Tibber or aWATTar), choose the tariff type "Dynamic" when recording a month. Instead of a fixed electricity price you then enter the month's actual bill amount — it can be left empty at first and added once the bill arrives. Evensum derives the average price per kWh from it automatically.

For months on a fixed tariff, the "Spot market comparison" card (right at the end of the Overview tab) shows roughly what a dynamic tariff would have cost: Evensum fetches the average day-ahead exchange prices (aWATTar, DE/LU) for those months and applies them to your grid draw — spot price × 1.19 VAT plus a flat 17 ct/kWh for grid fees, levies and provider margin, plus your base fee. This is deliberately a rough estimate: real dynamic tariffs differ depending on grid area, load profile and provider. The card is meant as guidance without guarantee, not a basis for billing.

Load profile in the spot-market comparison

A dynamic tariff costs a different amount per time slot – on the power exchange nowadays usually every 15 minutes (previously hourly), so whether it pays off depends heavily on when you use electricity. By default Evensum weights every hour equally ("Uniform"), giving the plain monthly average of the exchange prices. Using the selector you can instead pick a load profile that spreads your consumption over the day and weights the hourly exchange prices accordingly — showing how much the timing of consumption shifts the effective price of a dynamic tariff.

The available profiles:

Uniform (avg.) — every hour weighted equally, the plain monthly average. A neutral baseline.
Household (standard) — a typical home: low at night, a morning bump and a pronounced evening peak (cooking, lights, TV). A simplified take on the BDEW H0 standard profile.
Heat pump (night tariff) — for a heat pump that runs mostly at night: it draws cheap night electricity and "parks" the heat in a buffer/screed, running less during the day. So "night tariff" means deliberately heating during the cheap night hours — useful with time-varying tariffs.
PV self-consumption (day) — you deliberately shift consumption into the midday/daytime hours when your own PV system produces (laundry, hot water, dishwasher in the sun).
EV (night charging) — the wallbox charges mostly overnight (schedulable, often on a cheap night tariff), while the car is out during the day.
EV (evening charging) — uncontrolled charging right after getting home in the early evening (plug in = charge), peaking 6–9 pm.
EV + PV self-consumption — the car is charged specifically at midday from your own PV; strongly midday-weighted.

One thing to keep in mind: the exchange prices themselves are real, hourly day-ahead prices for the respective months – so they already reflect weekday and seasonal effects (weekends are genuinely cheaper, winter more expensive). What's simplified is only the load-profile weighting: it depends solely on the hour of day and doesn't distinguish a weekday from a weekend, or summer from winter – and your actual consumption differs from the profile anyway. The profiles are guidance, not an exact bill.

Important for reading the table: the exchange price is traded net on the power exchange (before taxes and grid fees). To make it comparable to your price, it's grossed up to a gross working price (VAT + flat surcharge). The per-kWh columns deliberately show pure working prices without the monthly base fee – only then are they directly comparable. The base fee still flows into the "Your costs" and "Estimated dynamic" columns so the total-cost comparison stays correct.

You edit each source's tariff in the Billing tab right inside its settlement box ("Advance payments & annual settlement"): the pencil icon at the top right of the box opens the "Change tariff" form – prefilled with the current terms (working price, base fee, advance). If a source has several meters, the pencil panel lists them individually. Use the + in the header to add a meter and thereby store, for the first time, the tariff of a not-yet-tracked source (gas or oil). You specify from which month the new terms apply (tariff type, electricity price, base fee, feed-in tariff, new advance payment), and Evensum updates all months already recorded from that point on.

Contracts & terms

In Evensum a tariff is a contract with a term: you set a start ("effective from") and, optionally, an end ("effective to"). Tick "Fixed contract end" in the pencil panel to choose the end month and year – without the tick the contract stays open (unlimited from the start, as before).

On saving, Evensum overwrites every already recorded month within the term (start to end, inclusive) with the contract's conditions – working price, base fee, advance (plus, for electricity, the tariff type and feed-in tariff). This lets you correct history precisely, for example when you add an old contract retroactively. Only the tariff values are changed; your consumption and meter readings stay untouched, and only that one meter is ever affected.

The pencil panel of the settlement box shows the list of all contracts for the meter with their term ("MM/YYYY – MM/YYYY" or "from MM/YYYY (open)") and their core conditions. Use the pencil icon to open a contract prefilled for editing, and the trash icon to remove it – removing a contract does not change months already recorded, only the future prefill.

Scheduling tariff changes (also for the future)

You can also set the "effective from" month in the future (up to 24 months ahead) – handy when your provider has already announced a price or advance change. The change is then stored as a scheduled tariff and takes effect even though no reading exists for that future month yet:

As soon as you record that month (or a later one), the new terms are already prefilled – no need to retype anything.
The currently applicable advance in your fixed costs only changes once the scheduled month is reached. A purely future change therefore leaves today's fixed costs untouched.
The scheduled contract appears in the contract list in the settlement box's pencil panel (with its term and conditions). There you can edit it at any time or remove it via the trash icon, without touching any months already recorded.

Vehicle module integration

If you drive an electric car or plug-in hybrid, Evensum links the Vehicles module with your energy costs: fuel expenses and electricity charged away from home flow automatically into your energy cost history, so you can see your total mobility and energy spending in one place.

One important detail: kWh charged at home are already included in your household's total electricity consumption, and counting them again would double-count that energy. By default, Evensum therefore lists them only for informational purposes — for example, "including 40 kWh charged at home for the EV" — without adding them to electricity costs a second time.

Exception — separate meter: If your wallbox runs on its own meter or electricity contract (so the charging energy is not part of your household electricity), enable the option "Count as separate cost in the energy dashboard" when logging the charge. Those charges then appear as their own "Home charging" cost line in the energy cost history instead of being listed for information only.

Charts

The Statistics area offers matching visualizations:

Stacked cost history: electricity, gas, fuel, and away-charging stacked per month, so you can see the composition of your energy and mobility costs
Self-sufficiency trend: how your self-sufficiency ratio develops over the months, for example seasonal swings due to more sunshine in summer
Payback progress: a progress bar or trend chart showing how close you are to breaking even on your solar investment

Practical tip

Log meter readings and invoice data as soon as you have them, ideally right after receiving your annual statement or during a monthly check of your inverter. The more consistent the data, the more accurate the self-sufficiency ratio and payback projection will be.