Year end, and everyone wants a number
Several of your clients produce annual reports that include their energy use and emissions, and their finance teams ask you for the figures. The request lands at the same time for many clients. Each needs a year of consumption for every site: electricity, gas, sometimes other fuels, split by the periods their reporting uses.
Your analysts pull bills, meter data and read histories into a spreadsheet per client. Some sites have half-hourly data. Some have bills with estimated reads. One site changed supplier mid-year, so its data comes from two places. A couple of sites are missing a month. The analyst fills gaps as sensibly as they can, and notes it somewhere.
Why the annual collation is so hard
The data for a carbon report is the same data you use all year, but it has to be complete, consistent and explained, for a fixed period, across every site.
- Data sources differ by site: interval data, bills, reads.
- Bill periods do not line up with reporting periods.
- Estimated and missing periods need to be identified and explained.
- Sites opened, closed or changed supplier during the year.
- The method used to fill gaps must be recorded for the client's adviser.
Late figures and awkward questions
Clients have deadlines for their reporting, and late figures from their energy consultant hold them up. Figures that later change, because a catch-up bill arrived or a site was missed, are worse.
Clients' auditors or reporting advisers may ask how figures were derived. If the method is in an analyst's head or a spreadsheet note, answering takes time and does not inspire confidence.
Annual collation with sources shown
We build collation on top of your meter, bill and site data.
- For each client, the reporting period is set, along with the sites and fuels in scope, as the client and their adviser define them.
- Consumption for each meter is assembled from the best source available for each period: interval data first, then actual reads, then bills.
- Bill periods are apportioned to the reporting period using a method you choose, applied consistently.
- Every figure is labelled by source and quality: interval, actual read, estimated bill, or gap.
- Gaps are listed for a person to resolve, by finding data or applying an agreed estimation method, which is recorded.
- The output is a pack for the client: consumption per site and fuel, the quality of each figure and a note of methods used. Conversion to emissions, if the client wants it, uses the factors the client's adviser specifies.
| Question | Spreadsheet collation | Collation with sources |
|---|---|---|
| Where did this figure come from? | Analyst's memory | Source shown per figure |
| Is it actual or estimated? | Sometimes noted | Labelled |
| Bill periods vs reporting period | Adjusted by hand | Apportioned by one method |
| Gaps | Filled quietly | Listed and resolved on record |
| Adviser asks about method | Reconstructed | Method note in the pack |
What the client reports, how, and under which rules is for the client and their reporting adviser. The collation provides the consumption data and shows its basis.
Figures delivered with their workings
When year end comes, the collation for each client runs from data you already hold. Analysts spend their time on the gaps, not the assembly. The client receives a pack showing every site's consumption, where it came from and how gaps were handled.
When the client's adviser asks a question, the answer is in the pack. And next year starts from a clean base.
Is carbon reporting season a scramble?
- Annual consumption is collated in spreadsheets per client.
- Estimated and missing periods are not clearly labelled.
- Bill periods are adjusted to reporting periods by hand.
- Clients' advisers ask how figures were derived.
- Figures have changed after they were sent.