Frequently
asked questions
Below are some of the questions we are commonly asked.
If you don’t see an answer to your question here please get in touch.
🖥 Account setup
We offer a completely free trial so that you can see if the platform meets your requirements before making any financial commitment.
Before you begin, have some original bills (PDF, CSV, Excel, XML) from your energy or water supplier ready to upload, so that you can straight away begin to see how EnergyElephant can help you manage your operations.
Once you have some bills to hand, simply sign up to begin your free trial.
Nope! We typically encourage having a few user logins on your EnergyElephant account and this is unlimited (*within reason). You can also add consultants from other companies that may need access to your account.
In the interest of security, it is important that you give your personnel the correct permission-levels for accessing your EnergyElephant account and also delete users when they no longer require access to your account.
*Please note that our fair usage policy applies to those plans offering unlimited users.
Absolutely! We allow as much historical data as you require to be added to any EnergyElephant account (within reason).
In fact, we can also provide free transition support to help move your organization from an existing legacy system over to EnergyElephant quickly and seamlessly with our expert customer support team.
📉 Analytics
EnergyElephant can handle building, vehicle and unmetered energy data. It can also handle scope 3 sustainability data, water data and waste data.
Some examples are listed below.
Buildings
- Electricity
- Natural gas
- Oil
- Propane
- LPG
- Biomass
- Solar (PV)
- Interval data (QH / HH)
- Green Button data
Vehicles
- Gasoline
- Petrol
- Diesel
- Fuel cards
- Electric vehicles
Scope 3 & other data
- Water
- Waste
- Airline flights
- Data centre energy
- Other Scope 3 data
Degree day analysis uses historical weather information to analyze your thermal energy usage. The thermal energy source is automatically detected based on data submitted and shown in the graph title. In many cases the main thermal energy source is Gas(sometimes referred to as Natural Gas). In most other cases the thermal energy source should be Night Rate Electricity or Heating Oil. If you are using Day Rate Electricity as your thermal energy source then you are probably paying too much for your heating.
During normal usage you should expect to use a certain number of kilowatt hours [kWhs] for each degree day. The amount used will vary depending on the building size, occupancy, and insulation characteristics. If you notice unusual spikes in the graph, then it may be that the heating was on when not required. We find this most commonly occurs in May (the heating is left on) and in September (the heating is turned back on irrespective of the weather).
If you disable your thermal source [e.g Gas] at the top of the page then you can view the thermal characteristics of other energy sources.
We currently remove the baseline usage based on the average usage during June, July and August. This is to account for non heating energy uses such as water-heating and cooking.
🗂️ Data Uploads
You can upload files and folders by dragging them into the box above. EnergyElephant automatically extracts all the important data from each uploaded file, including how much you pay, how much you use, meter readings and more.
We recommend adding the original files you receive from your utility provider. A copy is stored on EnergyElephant, providing you with a fully auditable trail when it comes to reporting.
Acceptable files: PDF CSV Excel XML
Whilst it is possible to upload scans or photographs of bills to retain as a digital record, the EnergyElephant platform does not currently extract data from scans or photographs of bills. If you can access an electronic original of the bill, it provides a rich source of original data and will also be retained within the system to support your audits.
A benefit of using electronic invoices is that you can reduce the environmental footprint created by paper billing. EnergyElephant can also serve as a single platform for storing and organising all of your utility and sustainability billing.
If you are unable to get access to original, digital bills from your supplier, you can try uploading whatever data files you have directly, or you can adapt it to fit our Templates or use our upload forms. In the case of using our upload templates, we recommend that you contact us via the support channel before doing this for the first time as we may be able to offer a better solution depending on your requirments.
If you do try to upload files and the system indicates that errors have occurred, we will review the data and update you by email on its status.
💶 Pricing
The EnergyElephant platform is designed to support and scale for organizations operating from just a single building, right up to multinationals with globally distributed teams.
A key benefit for multi-region operations is that we provide localization and data processing for your different utility providers, securely centralizing and standardizing data and analytics so that you can get the answers you need at all levels of your operation.
Plan pricing will be based on the number of meters / data points you wish to support and not the number of regions in which those meters are located.
Our definition of a meter point covers electricity, natural gas and water meters, fuel delivery points (usually one per buildings) and other sensor / submeter points.
We also count each individual vehicle as a meter point, where these are tracked. For multiple smaller meters or unmetered supplies, we typically bundle these up into grouped meter points to ensure it is cost effective to have all your meter points in one location.
Yes. We usually invoice annually in advance but we can invoice quarterly once a purchase order (PO) for the annual contract value is in place.
Of course. We want to support any community wanting to move towards a more sustainable future. If you are a charity or not-for-profit and require a discount, please just get in touch with our sales team.
🤔 Other questions
Yes. You’re welcome to download our free RFP/Tender Guide and Customisable Template.
The estimate of your next bill for a particular meter is calculated by looking at your usage in recent months. Submitting a recent meter reading will improve the accuracy of the bill total calculation by providing EnergyElephant with more up-to-date information.
You can use our App to submit a recent meter reading
If you have not uploaded a recent bill then the total will show our estimate of how much is owed since your last uploaded bill.
The billing period shown is approximate.