Common Area Electricity Under Control: How Property Managers Use Smart Meter Data

For heating costs, property managers have long had a system in place: metering companies deliver monthly consumption data, and the heating cost settlement is a well-established process. For electricity, this system is missing. Common area electricity — stairwell lighting, elevators, underground parking, laundry rooms — arrives as an annual bill. One number per building. No comparison, no breakdown, no way to spot anomalies.

Since Austria's ElWG update in December 2025, quarter-hourly data is transmitted to third parties by default — the manual activation step on the grid operator's portal is no longer needed. This applies to common area meters too. This article shows what property managers can do with that data in practice.

The common area electricity problem: One number per year

In Austria, property managers (Hausverwaltungen) manage the common area electricity contract on behalf of the owners' association (Eigentümergemeinschaft). Stairwell lighting, elevators, underground parking, exterior lighting, access control systems — everything that serves the building's shared operations runs through this meter.

Today, the energy supplier delivers an annual bill for this. One number. The property manager enters it into the operating cost settlement (Betriebskostenabrechnung), allocates costs by ownership shares, done.

What that one number doesn't show:

• When consumption is high and when it's low — day and night, weekday and weekend, summer and winter are all one number in the annual total
• Whether consumption is normal — a circulation pump running 24/7 doesn't stand out in the annual sum
• How consumption is trending — is it really increasing, or was last year an outlier?
• Whether the monthly prepayments are calibrated correctly — based on last year's bill, not the actual trend

When a building owner questions rising operating costs, the property manager can only point to the total bill. No breakdown, no comparison, no explanation.

For heating, you've had this for years — for electricity, it's missing

Since January 2022, Austria's Heating Cost Settlement Act (Heizkostenabrechnungsgesetz, HeizKG) requires monthly consumption information for heating and cooling, provided remotely readable meters are installed. Property managers know this process: ista, Techem, or Brunata deliver the data, and the heating cost settlement is standardized.

For electricity, there is nothing comparable. No law requires monthly electricity consumption information. And hardly any service provider has addressed this gap for property managers.

The difference from heating: heating cost data requires additional hardware — heat cost allocators or heat meters that companies like ista install on each radiator. For electricity, the infrastructure is already in place. Over 97% of electricity connections in Austria have a smart meter. The common area meter in your building is very likely already one.

What daily smart meter data makes visible

With daily quarter-hourly data from the common area meter, four things become visible that are invisible in the annual bill:

Spotting anomalies immediately

Parking garage lighting that's no longer controlled by its timer and burns around the clock. A circulation pump that runs continuously instead of cycling. A defective motion sensor in the stairwell. In the annual bill, these only show up when the total has risen significantly — and then nobody knows since when or why.

With daily data, the property manager sees the change the next day. Not as an automated alert, but in the consumption curve: a sudden rise in the nighttime baseline, a new consumption pattern on weekends. The timing of the change is visible, and with it the starting point for finding the cause.

Comparing buildings

If you manage 20, 40, or 80 buildings, you can overlay common area electricity data. Buildings with similar equipment should show similar patterns. If one building deviates significantly, it's worth a closer look: different operating hours, additional consumers, or a technical problem.

Improving prepayment estimates

Owners' monthly prepayments are based on last year's bill. Daily consumption data shows the actual trend over the current year. If consumption is rising, the property manager can adjust prepayments in time — sparing owners a large back-payment at the annual settlement.

Verifying measures

New LED lighting in the stairwell, a more efficient elevator drive, adjusted timer settings for exterior lighting: is the measure delivering the expected savings? With quarter-hourly data, the change becomes visible in weeks, not on the next annual bill.

How does data access work for common area meters?

The common area meter is registered to the owners' association or building owner. Since the property manager already manages the electricity contract, the data access process follows the same entity.

The process:

1. Enter the metering point number (the 33-character ID on the building's electricity bill)
2. energiedaten.at sends the data access request to the grid operator
3. The meter holder — typically the owners' association — approves on the grid operator's portal
4. Data flows daily, with no further manual steps — here's how the data pipeline works

One approval per meter. Not per apartment, not per owner. Some buildings have one common area meter, others have two (e.g., one for the building and one for the parking garage). For a portfolio of 40 buildings, that's typically 40 to 80 approvals. Approval typically takes 1 to 5 business days.

One system instead of many portals

A portfolio spanning multiple Austrian provinces means multiple grid operators: Wiener Netze, Netz NÖ, Netz Burgenland, Salzburg AG — each with its own portal, format, and login credentials. Why automation matters is covered in a separate article.

energiedaten.at normalizes data from all Austrian grid operators into one unified format. Enter metering point numbers, complete the approvals, and consumption data arrives:

• CSV via email — daily, weekly, or monthly, as needed
• Open in Excel, import into property management software, or archive directly
• No IT team needed, no server, no programming

From the Growing plan, metering point numbers can also be added via bulk import (CSV) — practical when setting up 40 or more buildings at once.

What does it cost?

Two examples from practice:

Small portfolio (10 buildings, 1 common area meter each): Starter plan: 10 meters included, €29 per month. That's €2.90 per meter per month.

Mid-size portfolio (40 buildings, 2 common area meters each): Growing plan: 40 meters included + 40 extra meters × €2.00 = €169 per month. That's €2.11 per meter per month.

Compare that to the time spent on manual data collection: quarterly meter readings, entering data into software, follow-ups with grid operators. At 40 buildings, that's several workdays per year.

Both plans start with a 14-day free trial. No risk, no upfront cost: enter a metering point, complete the approval, review the data.

Conclusion

Common area electricity is property management's blind spot. The annual bill shows one amount — not what's behind it. Daily smart meter data makes anomalies, trends, and savings potential visible that remain hidden in a single number.

The infrastructure is already in place: smart meters are deployed across Austria, and since the ElWG, quarter-hourly data is transmitted to third parties by default. For heating costs, property managers have had a system for years. For electricity, it's now just as simple — without additional hardware, without an IT team.

Try it with one building: Starter plan, 14 days free, 10 meters included.

For larger portfolios: Growing plan from €89/month, up to 150 meters.