As energy prices rise and billing complexities increase, visibility into utility spend is no longer a nice-to-have – it’s a business imperative. Property Wheel reached out to industry specialists ELDO Energy to better understand how they enable property owners and managers to take back control, optimise their operations, and futureproof their property portfolios.

South African property owners are under pressure, looking for operational efficiencies and non-GLA income to increase property yields and with the National Energy Regulator (NERSA) announcing an average 12.41% electricity increase for 2025/2026, along with shifts in Eskom’s pricing structures, the cost of inaction is growing fast.

If you don’t have the right metering infrastructure and full visibility into your property’s energy usage, you are playing a losing game.

ELDO Energy is here to change that as South Africa’s leading digital utility services provider by helping property owners take control of their energy costs and tenant billings with powerful, real-time energy data insights and services.

Founded in 2013 by Tim Ohlsen, ELDO Energy recognised early on the potential for a software-first approach in the utility space. With a focus on energy data, rather than metering hardware, the ELDO Energy platform has evolved from an energy management tool to one of SA’s most trusted and largest energy data, utility billing and payment providers. The company has managed over 50 000 smart metres across commercial, residential, industrial, and mixed-use properties, and processed more than R40 billion in utility billings.

Data-driven utilities: from confusion to clarity

With an open-platform philosophy, Eldo Energy has integrated over 50 smart metre protocols and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), making it simple to migrate existing infrastructure or to deploy new smart metres.

“We are not a metering company,” says Anne Mardon, COO of ELDO Energy. “We are a digital utility platform – hardware agnostic and enabling automated, accurate, and transparent utility services powered by data.”

ELDO Energy offers the most comprehensive services in the market:

Real-time visibility, smarter decisions

Through ELDO Energy’s secure and web-based platform, property owners, managers and their tenants can:

• Accurately track daily, weekly or monthly energy, as well as water (hot and cold) and gas consumption and costs in a user-friendly manner.
• Accurately bill tenants for utility payments to ensure a 100% collection rate, and protecting the legislated reseller margin.
• Monitor common-area usage and recover hidden costs.
• Generate detailed reports on energy performance, reseller collections and margins, meter health, carbon footprint, and solar performance outputs.

“Our customers often discover under-recovery issues they weren’t even aware of — especially in shared spaces,” says Mardon. “We go beyond raw consumption and help them understand what is being used, when, and at what rate. From there, we come up with a plan to ensure everything is charged accurately and recovered”.

Automated tenant billing and credit control

Understanding consumption is only half the battle — securing utility revenue is equally critical. ELDO Energy’s universal tariff engine dynamically aligns with Eskom and municipal updates, delivering automated billing that’s verified and validated:

• Provisional bills are instantly available.
• Automated anomaly detection ensures billing accuracy.
• Published bills are generated after verification.
• Exportable CSVs and/or excel reports offer complete transparency.

ELDO Energy also offers an integrated eWallet system for tenant payments at the most-competitive market rates, which enables:

• Real-time disconnection when balances hit zero with instant payment through the ELDO Energy payment gateway.
• Automated tenant notifications and top-up reminders.
• Bill and collect levies and other recoveries through ELDO’s eWallet.
• Simplified credit control for property managers.

And for large-scale bills, ELDO Energy’s platform helps decode costly demand charges — even in billing disputes.

“Recently, we have helped a mixed-use site challenge a R24 million overbilling from Council. Our data and reports make these type of cases easy to prove, even if we don’t directly represent clients in disputes,” says Mardon.

Trusted by thousands, backed by results

ELDO Energy is consistently rated 4.8 stars on HelloPeter, with a strong reputation for service excellence by some of SA’s largest blue-chip brands and property owners. Now every property owner can benefit from ELDO Energy’s leading software and services – sign-up to ELDO Energy and receive your first 3-months for free.

So, you ask yourself, “why ELDO Energy?” Simple: it works!

ELDO Energy is a software-first, hardware-flexible, and fully automated service provider. That means:

✅ Accurate billing
✅ Live energy tracking
✅ Easy payments
✅ 100% recoveries and reseller margin protection
✅ Lower admin
✅ Happy tenants

The future of energy is cheaper, cleaner and smarter

ELDO Energy has been using its software platform to help its customers find more affordable and renewable electricity through NERSA’s energy wheeling legislation.

“We work with our customers and utilise their unique attributes of location, tariffs, grid connection and energy data to source cheaper and cleaner electricity supplied directly through the existing grid, from large renewable energy generators,” says Ohlsen.

ELDO Energy aggregates many customers and their energy demand together into a pool, which it then places with renewable energy generators that historically could only service a small number of large customers.

“Using our software approach, we are making renewable energy wheeling accessible and affordable for everyone,” Ohlsen adds.

Start your smarter utility journey today

ELDO Energy is here to help you get more out of your utilities. In our engagement with the team, we have found them insightful, passionate and deeply knowledgeable about the utility domain.

From feasibility studies to full installation and onboarding, ELDO Energy handles the entire process:

1. Analyses of 12 months of historical council bills.
2. Site visit and feasibility analysis.
3. Customised migration plan for existing infrastructure OR rollout plan and metering installation.
4. Setup and user training on ELDO Energy’s dashboard and mobile app
5. Turnkey digital utility operations, customer support and reporting.

“Our customers want to understand their utility data and fees — and we make that possible. When you understand where and how your energy is used, you’re empowered to take control and minimise losses,” Mardon concludes.

To benefit from ELDO Energy’s 3-month free offer, sign-up here to switch to ELDO.