UTILITY BILL MANAGEMENT

Turning Energy Data into Business Value

Modern Energy Management Systems (EMS) contain a billing engine that can apply utility tariffs to energy data. But these billing engines do more than just generate a utility bill — they transform raw data into financial intelligence, helping organizations create potential revenue streams, recover costs, and drive accountability.

It’s about making your energy data actionable, traceable, and ultimately, valuable to your customers and business stakeholders. Let’s review the main applications for a billing engine, noting that they can be applied not just to electrical services but also water, air, gas and steam.

Bill Verification

With Bill Verification, an Energy Management System (EMS) generates a “shadow bill” and then compares it to the actual utility bill. Any discrepancies between the two bills can lead to cost recovery, improved accountability, and more informed negotiations with utility providers.

Utility bills for large consumers are complex documents with many determinants. The data acquisition systems and billing engines that utilities use to calculate bills are typically older platforms and can be difficult to maintain and error-prone in some cases, especially when adapting for onsite generation.

While Bill Verification is commonly associated with electricity, it extends to other utilities as well. The same principles and scrutiny can be applied to bills for water, air, gas, and steam.

Bill Verification ensures that organizations are only paying for what they actually consume, and that all rate structures and charges are applied correctly.

Tenant Billing

Tenant billing is used in multi-tenant facilities to allocate and charge each tenant for their share of utility consumption, whether electricity, water and gas. The purpose is to ensure that tenants are billed for their actual contribution to the primary utility bill, rather than simply dividing utility costs evenly or folding them into rent. This approach not only supports cost recovery for landlords and property managers but can also drive tenant satisfaction, as individuals and businesses see a direct link between their usage and what they pay. providing a platform to incentivize efficiency upgrades—such as energy-efficient appliances or lighting—by making the benefits of lower consumption directly visible on their bills.

Beyond straightforward cost recovery, Tenant Billing can serve as a tool for revenue generation, particularly in jurisdictions that allow for mark-ups or administrative fees on utility charges. Property owners may be permitted to add a reasonable margin or service fee to utility pass-throughs, helping to offset administrative overhead or even generate additional profit streams.

EMS-based Tenant Billing typically requires integration with tenant management systems and accounting software for a seamless tenant experience. With an EMS, property managers are also able to provide value-added features such as a portal to view historical and real-time energy performance.

Cost Allocation

Cost allocation, particularly through Activity-Based Costing (ABC), is a method that assigns costs to specific activities or processes, providing a more accurate picture of how resources are consumed within an organization. Applying ABC to energy management enables organizations to track actual energy use across different departments, equipment, or activities, rather than relying on estimates or averages.

An EMS billing engine, with appropriate sub-metering, collects energy data, applies allocation rules, and calculated accurate costs for each cost center or user group. This allows organizations to identify inefficiencies, optimize energy usage, and fairly distribute costs according to actual consumption patterns, supporting more informed decision-making and promoting accountability across the business.

There is an important difference between cost allocation and tenant billing. Cost allocation is a cost-recovery mechanism, whereas tenant billing can be used as a revenue stream.

How Utility Billing Works

The diagram below illustrates how billing works within an EMS. A billing engine works as part of the overall system to deliver value. Keep in mind that while this example is for electrical energy, the same approach applies for water, air, gas, steam and any utility-oriented service.

Billing is complex

There are several factors that complicate the process of creating bills for verification, tenant billing and cost allocation.

Complex Energy Systems

Utility tariffs have long been complex. But today’s rapid innovation in energy systems, driven mainly by distributed energy resources (DERs), adds new levels of complexity:

  • rapid electrification including EV charging and heating

  • a mix of traditional and onsite generation such as solar and batteries

  • exposure to energy markets with dynamic pricing

  • new utility tariff structures & policies to maintain grid stability

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A BILLING SOLUTION

  • Capable of sub-metering all loads and generation assets, including the ability to measure bi-directional power flow.

  • A billing engine that that can accurately model a utility tariff including consumption & demand charges, TOU rates, fixed and variable fees, market pricing, power factor penalties and more.

  • Ability to create utility bills for electrical, gas and water utilities.

Complex Facilities

Facilities are complex systems on their own, often having some or all of these characteristics:

  • complex spaces with services and assets shared across consumers

  • multiple tenants, including pop-up tenants and tenants who may occupy multiple buildings with different tariffs.

  • tenant move in/move out dates that may not align with billing periods

  • internal department or process boundaries that change frequently

  • some loads or generation assets may not be metered

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A BILLING SOLUTION

  • Can allocate energy from common areas (eg: atriums) to tenants or departments.

  • Handles move-in/out dates that don’t align with billing periods.

  • Supports virtual metering when physical meters are not available.

  • Able to integrate with Tenant Management Systems and Bill Reconciliation platforms.

  • Provides a portal to tenants or departments to view their energy performance and bill status.

Data Quality Issues

Data quality refers to the completeness, consistency & accuracy of energy data. Poor data quality causes errors and a results in a lack of trust in the energy bills that are based on the incomplete or inaccurate data. There are several common causes of poor data quality:

  • Metering from different manufacturers may not calculate measurements the same way. This is typical when an EMS monitors multiple buildings or buildings with large retrofits having multiple meter vendors.

  • Communications networks may not be robust, resulting in missing data from when the network was down or duplicate data created when the network is re-established

  • Meters may be misconfigured by contractors after being taken offline for testing or upgrades

  • Devices may be correctly time-synchronized

  • Data may be corrupt due to unauthorized access

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A BILLING SOLUTION

  • Metering that stores data onboard in order to prevent data loss during network outages

  • Ability to post-process data to account for different measurement algorithms from different meter vendors

  • Robust time synchronization and event logging capabilities

  • Strong cybersecurity protection for metering and financial data

  • A data quality sub-system that allows data to be corrected if missing or incorrect data is detected

The Bottom Line

Billing is complex. A EMS with a powerful billing engine and good data quality capabilities is essential.

Solutions

  • ION Power meters are the most accurate & intelligent power meters available, measuring thousands of power quality and energy variables and transmitting them to the software system.

  • For non-critical loads or circuits, we supply basic meters that provide all the necessary measurements to support energy and electrification management

Electrical Metering

EnergyX® Platform

  • The EnergyX® cloud platform contains all energy management & electrification applications in a single portal, supporting multiple sites, users, languages and time zones.

    EnergyX® has a powerful billing engine that can model any bill determinant and generate bills for bill verification, tenant billing and cost allocation.

  • EnergyX® Edge Kits provide onsite monitoring & control and a secure connection to the EnergyX® cloud platform.