Member Control Panel
Automatic Energy Monitoring and Management of Electricity and other Resources
| By Mike Dorgan, NewFound Energy Limited Why should you be monitoring your energy use? All reductions in the use of energy and other resources will improve your company profitability £ for £, but before embarking on steps to change practices and cut waste etc it is essential that precise information confirming how and when energy is used is collected. Energy and other resource monitoring provides information that enables a user to cut operational costs through improved knowledge and analysis of how a site(s) uses electricity, gas, water and other resources. For efficient management of resources a comprehensive energy monitoring system will provide the following:
How? First of all meters for the resource(s) of concern need to be installed. All utility meters are now available with a pulse output and sometimes additional data communication facilities such as MODBUS, network communication and radio/GSM modems. Unlike when tenant billing is required, for electricity sub-metering, it is not necessary to use OFGEM or MID approved meters as lower cost class1 meters are readily available. These meters may have a simple consumption display or may provide more comprehensive information to the user. To physically read the meter and manually transpose and analyse the information at an intended ‘regular’ interval is far from efficient and not guaranteed to be sufficiently accurate to gain full benefit. This method will also not bring the power of precise defined usage information as will be available from an automatic monitoring system. It is also essential that meters are installed in the most appropriate and useful locations. To determine these locations requires considered analysis of the purposes to which the information gathered will be put and the benefits possible from the efforts applied. Where If electricity alone is the initial concern, and it is not certain precisely which areas should be monitored, the use of a temporary portable electricity meter will provide a valuable insight into the pattern and level of use of the circuit monitored. With this kind of equipment it is also sometimes possible to obtain information relating to the state of the electricity network. Data collected can be analysed, usually with software supplied with the system, to indicate areas where action will bring an improvement in energy use and remove waste, bad practices and potential overload or phase imbalance problems. Using this information the best locations for permanent meter installation can easily be determined as a forerunner to installing an automatic energy monitoring and/or control system. The approach of using a temporary portable meter is also possible with respect to water where non-invasive meters are available. Unfortunately it is not as easy with gas, compressed air and other resources such as fuel oil where to measure use it is necessary to cut into the flow line. After initial surveys the path to follow depends on the site requirements and how the measured usage information is to be collected from the meters. Historically the use of pulsing meters with loggers has, and can continue to be, the backbone of data collection. With site-wide and multi-site network systems this approach can easily cover many locations without the need to use radio or modems. When necessary wireless technology can be utilised but it should not always be the first route to be considered. Some electricity meters are now available that provide more than just energy usage information. These meters can also give information on current, voltages, peak values on various parameters, and in some cases harmonics etc. The meters tend to have, if not as standard, an option for MODBUS or other forms of communication including the possibility of the data stored being collected over a network. These meters are individually more expensive than the standard kWh meter with a pulse output. They can, however, in some instances, form the basis of a system for a site (or sites) with widespread metering point locations that may prove no more expensive than a system based on the use of data loggers. Some of the meters are supplied without software so that the user(s) can create their own reporting capability; others have software available that includes all the facilities of an effective energy monitoring system. From current available energy monitoring systems the data collected should be readily available to any interested party on the site that has access to a networked PC. This is equally relevant to ‘in-house’ systems and hosted packages. Most ‘in-house’ systems will have a ‘real-time’ element that will assist in live efforts to control usage. A system with quick response will show the success or otherwise of improved practices and decisions made by line managers in their efforts to operate more efficiently. Visual and audible alarms will assist in control actions and, if required, systems are available that can be packaged to include fully automatic control of loads to prevent excessive energy use on a demand or load basis. This helps protect against tariff excess charges and overload failures where use levels can exceed supply capacity provision. Reporting facilities will be available that will provide precise information on levels and patterns of use plus costs attributable to product production runs even when very complex electricity tariffs are involved. These reporting facilities will enable the user to
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