Current energy reports confirm the steadily enlarging gap between available conventional energy resources and future energy demand. This gap results in the raising energy costs and has become a determining factor in economies. Hence, politics, industry and research focus either on regenerative energy resources or on energy efficient concepts, methods and technologies for energy consuming devices. A remaining challenge is energy optimization of complex systems during their operation time. In addition to optimization measures that can be applied in development and engineering, the generation of optimization measures that are customized to the specific dynamic operational situation, promise high cost saving potentials. This contribution introduces a model-based approach for user-centric energy cost analysis of industrial automation systems. The approach allows automated generation and application of individual optimization proposals. Focus of this paper is on a basic variant for user interaction with a single industrial automation system.