EWRB Ontario: the utility data you need to report by July 1

Ontario's Energy and Water Reporting and Benchmarking (EWRB) initiative asks owners of large buildings to report a full calendar year of energy and water use every July. The rules are short. The work is not, because the report must cover the whole building, including tenant accounts the owner never sees, entered in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager without gaps. Most late or incorrect submissions trace back to utility data requested too late or assembled from the wrong sources.

This guide states what the Ontario government's own pages say about who must report, the deadline, the tool, the data, verification and exemptions, with links to each page. It then covers the practical side: assembling 12 months of whole-building electricity, gas and water across tenants, getting the data from Ontario utilities, a month-by-month timeline back from July 1, and the common errors. For the Portfolio Manager mechanics see get utility data into ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager.

Who must report

Ontario's EWRB page states that if an Ontario building is 50,000 square feet or larger, the owner needs to report the building's energy and water use once a year to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, under Ontario Regulation 506/18 (Reporting of Energy Consumption and Water Use). The guide adds that you may need to report if you own or represent a building of that size, that the building types required to report are identified by their Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) property codes, and that multiple buildings on one property can be reported individually or cumulatively.

The province's list of building types covers multi-residential properties with 7 or more self-contained units (including condominiums, life leases and cooperative housing), commercial properties such as offices, medical buildings, hotels, retail and entertainment venues, industrial properties including warehousing and distribution centres, and institutional properties such as universities, schools, hospitals and seniors facilities. Publicly owned buildings are exempt, and public-sector organizations report separately under the Broader Public Sector energy reporting regulation.

The deadline, the reporting year and the tool

The deadline is July 1 of each year. The data to be included is for the previous calendar year, from January 1 to December 31. The province's how-to-report page lists the steps as creating a Portfolio Manager account, entering building information and the EWRB ID, entering energy and water usage data, adding certifications if applicable, confirming data verification status, running the Data Quality Checker, and submitting to the Ministry. The EWRB ID is a unique six-digit number assigned to your property by the Ministry. An existing account is reused each year; meters are set up once and new data is added annually.

What you report

The report covers building information and usage. The guide asks for the total gross floor area of the building and the gross floor area for each use type, and the how-to-report page says to add a separate Vacant use type if the building is more than 10 per cent vacant. On usage, the instruction is to include all energy and water usage for the entire building that you are reporting for. Forms of energy are usually electricity and natural gas but can include diesel, fuel oil, district energy, wood and others, and usage data can be collected from utility bills and fuel purchase invoices.

Verification

The verification rule is size-based. Ontario states that if your building is 100,000 square feet or larger, the report information must be verified by a certified professional the first year your report is required, and every five years after that. Verification status is recorded by setting the Data Verification field on the property's Details tab. Keep the bills with the verifier's working papers; the verifier will want source documents, not the spreadsheet.

Exemptions

The province's exemption page lists ongoing exemptions that require no notice: at least 50 per cent of gross floor area occupied by a public agency; at least 10 per cent occupied by a data centre, television studio or trading floor; or at least 10 per cent used for manufacturing, commercial, agricultural or industrial processing where environmental conditions are governed by those operations. One-year exemptions, which require an exemption notice, cover a property whose owner is an insolvent person under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act during the reporting year, a property subject to tax arrears certificates, power of sale, foreclosure or writs of execution, and a newly constructed property whose occupancy certificate is issued that year. The ministry's page links to an exemption form.

Assembling 12 months of whole-building data across tenants

The hard part of EWRB is the word "entire". If tenants pay their own utilities, the owner has no bills for those accounts, and Portfolio Manager still needs them. The province's guide addresses this directly: if tenants pay the utilities in your building, you will need to contact your utility company, and electricity, natural gas and water utilities are required to provide you with aggregated monthly data for EWRB reporting. To make the request you provide the building address and a billing account or meter number from your utility bill, and the utility may ask for proof of ownership.

Natural Resources Canada's guidance to utilities explains how those aggregated requests are handled. Canadian utilities typically apply a threshold of 10 or more customers or tenants before releasing aggregated data without tenant consent, sometimes with a secondary rule such as 4/50, and they count unique customers rather than meters. Below the threshold you need each tenant's consent. NRCan also recommends utilities provide an itemized list of the meters included in the aggregate, so ask for it and reconcile it against your own meter inventory.

Start by listing every account and meter serving the building: owner-paid, tenant-paid, house meters, parking, signage, irrigation and fuel deliveries, then decide the source for each. The collecting utility data across a property portfolio guide describes the inventory in detail, and NRCan's FAQ sets the target: at least 12 full consecutive calendar months for all active meters and all fuel types.

Getting the data from Ontario utilities

For owner-paid electricity and gas accounts you have three sources. Green Button: Ontario states that most regulated Ontario electricity and natural gas utilities must provide customers with access to their energy usage data in Green Button format, and the OEB notes customers can authorize the secure, automatic transfer of that data to a third-party application and revoke it by contacting the utility. Utility portals: downloadable usage and billing history. Bills: the PDFs you already receive, digitized. The utility-specific guides for Alectra, Toronto Hydro and Hydro One show where to find each.

For tenant-paid accounts, the aggregated data request to the utility described above is the route. Requests take time, so they belong at the start of the timeline. The natural gas, water and propane data alongside electricity guide covers the fuels that arrive as delivery invoices rather than utility bills.

Water data

Water is required, and it is usually the least automated commodity. Municipal water bills in Ontario generally arrive as PDFs or paper on a monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly cycle, and tenant water accounts follow the same aggregated request process the guide describes for electricity and gas. Plan for water bills to need digitization, watch for combined water and wastewater charges where only the water volume is needed, confirm the unit (usually cubic metres), and enter the actual bill period so Portfolio Manager can prorate across months.

A timeline working back from July 1

When	What to do
January	Confirm the building list and EWRB IDs. Update the account and meter inventory. Send aggregated data requests to utilities for tenant-paid accounts.
February	Set up any new meters in Portfolio Manager. Start collecting owner-paid bills and Green Button data for January to December of the previous year.
March	Digitize water and fuel invoices. Chase outstanding aggregated data responses. Confirm whether verification is due this year.
April	Enter or upload all energy and water data. Reconcile the utility's meter list against your inventory. Run the Data Quality Checker and clear alerts.
May	Engage the verifier if required and provide source documents. Update gross floor area and use types, including Vacant if over 10 per cent.
June	Re-run the Data Quality Checker. Submit, e-sign, and save the confirmation email. Leave buffer for corrections.

The province's submission page states that you go to the Portfolio Manager EWRB reporting submission page, select properties, create the report, send the response, e-sign and click Send Data, and that if you change relevant information after submitting you must re-submit.

Common errors

Requesting tenant data in June: aggregated data requests started late are the most common cause of a missed deadline
A missing month for one fuel, which breaks the 12 consecutive month requirement for the score
Gas entered in the wrong unit or water entered as a combined water and sewer figure
Fuel deliveries (propane, oil) left out because they are invoices rather than utility bills
Skipping the Data Quality Checker after a late change to floor area or meters; the guide says to run it after any change

Frequently asked questions

Which buildings must report under EWRB in Ontario?

Privately owned buildings 50,000 square feet or larger whose MPAC property code is on the province's list, including multi-residential buildings with 7 or more units, offices, retail, hotels, industrial and institutional properties. Publicly owned buildings are exempt and report under the BPS regulation instead.

When is the EWRB reporting deadline?

July 1 of each year, covering the previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31. Reports go through ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager to the Ministry of Energy and Mines.

Do I need whole-building data if tenants pay their own bills?

Yes. The guide requires all energy and water usage for the entire building and says utilities are required to provide aggregated monthly data on request, given the building address and an account or meter number. NRCan notes utilities typically need 10 or more customers to release aggregated data without tenant consent.

How EZGB fits

EZGB assembles the data an EWRB submission needs. It collects billing and interval data from 55+ Ontario electricity and natural gas utilities through authorized utility connections and Green Button, digitizes water, fuel and other PDF or scanned bills with BillScan, and retrieves on a schedule, typically daily, so the previous calendar year is already collected when reporting season starts. Each record is validated for period continuity, units and duplicates, and delivered by REST API, SFTP, JSON and CSV. The automated bill and meter data retrieval page and how EZGB works describe the process, and EZGB pricing lists the plans. The utility data for residential landlords and multifamily portfolios guide covers the multi-residential case in more depth.

If you report under EWRB for one building or a hundred, we can walk through your account list, show which accounts can be connected and which need bill capture, and show the delivered dataset against the 12-month requirement. Request a demo on the pricing page.

Sources

Source: ontario.ca