We are living in a competitive business environment and businesses are turning to energy management systems to reduce the costs of electricity and improve profits. Energy management reduces energy costs for most businesses. However, not all energy management and monitoring solutions are the same. Here are some tips for choosing the right system for your needs.
Know your needs
You need to understand the energy flows that you want to monitor so that you can decide on the right solution to use. For example, do you wish to measure and record electricity consumption data or do you also wish to monitor the use of thermal fuel such as oil or gas consumption? Do you wish specific areas to be monitored? Do you want the monitoring solution to integrate existing monitoring systems? These are some of the most important questions to ask when choosing the right energy monitoring and management systems.
Choose real-time data
It is important to ask the energy supplier about the type of data that will be available from the energy solution you choose. Some energy management solutions provide quarterly hourly energy data on your facility or building on a site-wide basis. This is relatively straightforward. Other solutions offer better granularity on the collection of energy data when it comes to the use of electricity, offering real-time data on a site-wide basis and also by circuit or area. This type of information offers a better scope for identifying opportunities how to lower electric bills.
Don’t go for monitoring only
When choosing an energy solution, you should ensure it can offer more than just the display of energy data on a yearly, monthly, weekly or daily basis. Does the energy solution offer a cloud-based solution that can be accessed from any type of device? Are there energy consultancy and customer support services provided? Can the energy solution identify significant consumers of energy automatically?
Match the energy solution to your expertise
You should understand who will be using the energy solution. Do the users want a complete management system that offers control of appliances and equipment? These solutions can be over-specified, complex and very expensive for a lot of people to use.
Label circuits before installing
It is important to ensure that all energy flows that you want to monitor are correctly labelled before any work has started as this is crucial to ensure data for particular areas and circuits are reliable.
Understand the installation requirements
It is vital to ask the supplier if there will be disruption to your business operations during the installation of the energy management systems and ensure that the installation is done by a certified provider.
Plan to engage with the energy solution
The success of energy management systems is determined by the level of user engagement with the energy management solution. Will the users have enough time to use the solution? Will your users understand well energy data or do they need support? Will they be energy capable and aware of finding power savings?
