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Need help in this area? See Methodology FAQ.
Utility bills arrive in whatever units the provider uses — kWh, MWh, therms, CCF, gallons, cubic meters, and more. To give you consistent charts, totals, and exports, Nectar converts all usage into your company’s preferred display units.

How it works

Each bill’s usage is stored exactly as it appeared on the original document. When Nectar displays or aggregates that data (in analytics, exports, or site dashboards), it converts to your company’s preferred unit for that commodity.
CommodityCommon bill unitsDefault display unit
ElectricitykWh, MWhkWh
Gastherms, CCF, MCF, m³, GJtherms
Watergallons, CCF, m³, kgalgallons
Fuelgallons, litersgallons
Wastetons, lbs, cubic yardstons

Company unit preferences

Your company’s preferred units are configured in Settings > Company > Data Collection. You can set a preferred unit for each commodity — for example, switching electricity from kWh to MWh if your portfolio operates at large scale. When you change a unit preference, all analytics views, exports, and aggregations update to reflect the new unit. Historical data is not modified — only how it’s displayed.

Where you see converted vs original units

ContextUnits shown
Analytics dashboards and chartsCompany preferred units (converted)
Site and meter aggregationsCompany preferred units (converted)
Data exports (CSV, XLSX)Company preferred units (converted)
Bill detail viewOriginal bill units (as received)
Usage data table on a billOriginal bill units (as received)
If a number looks unexpectedly large or small, check whether the bill arrived in a different unit than your display preference. For example, a bill reporting 5 MWh will display as 5,000 kWh if your company preference is kWh.

Mixed units across bills

It’s normal for different bills on the same meter to arrive in different units — for example, one utility may switch from therms to CCF between billing cycles, or a meter may have historical bills in one unit and recent bills in another. Nectar handles this transparently: each bill is stored in its original units, and all values are converted to a common unit before aggregation. You never need to worry about adding kWh to MWh or gallons to CCF — Nectar does this automatically.