Energy meters
The importance of monitoring energy meters and the benefits it offers
Monitoring specialists
Spook's award winning remote monitoring service called OmniWatch monitors a variety of utility energy meters. Measuring energy meter metrics across an organisation; OmniWatch presents realtime readings in an easy to use real-time digital dashboard.
Spook and OmniWatch was voted Specialist Technology Company of the Year and Most Innovative Solution of the Year at the annual UK CIR Business Continuity Awards.
What is energy meter monitoring?
Energy meter monitoring is the process of measuring energy consumption for the whole or part of a facilities incoming electricity or gas. By measuring the incoming energy provided by the utility provider means granular consumption can be understood too, from energy sub-sets (departmental and building consumption) to individual assets.
Monitoring energy consumption and having the ability to analyse trend data over long periods of time means efficiency gains or losses can be accurately identified.
Peak load
Utility companies install energy meters to keep track on how much energy is provided to an organisation. They measure peak load by meter usage as the average demand over 15 minutes. This is done by adding up the energy consumed and then dividing by the interval of time.
The highest average 15 minute period of demand over a month is known as peak demand. OmniWatch can automate the whole process and present this in real-time and provide accurate trend data in auto daily, weekly or monthly reports.
Efficiency gains
Energy meter monitoring is important as it is the process of making energy consumption efficient, from buildings or campuses to individual assets across the facility such as HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and air conditioning) and more.
Monitoring at meter level is vital in helping to control and conserve energy now and in the future. Energy inefficiencies can be identified enabling organisations time to implement changes to reduce energy consumption and as a consequence maximise cost savings.
Energy reduction
The opportunity of reducing energy consumption by measuring it and understanding how an organisations energy interdependencies work only comes with measuring energy in the first place. To paraphrase Lord Kelvin - If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.
For example, monitoring a building’s energy meter levels could highlight inefficiencies such as excessively heating a vacant area, constantly providing lighting and other power hungry activities such as cooling and ventilation.
Commercial buildings are typically noted for their energy inefficiency. Offices usually have open spaces that require a lot of heating to fill the space alongside an excessive amount of lighting. When you consider that the CO2 impact of electricity consumption is 2.5 times greater than that of natural gas exasperates the situation.
Granular monitoring
Energy bills from utility companies are simply broken down to usage and cost over a given period of time. However, there is typically no analysis available to identify where sub-sets of the consumption occur. Therefore, it doesn’t provide energy managers with the appropriate information they need to make data-driven decisions.
The Carbon Trust suggest that approximately 20% of all business related energy costs are wasted through inefficient equipment. Therefore, by monitoring energy consumption at meter level and drilling down to asset level means an assets performance and energy output can be identified and alerts can be generated when these become less efficient.
Realtime monitoring
Energy monitoring only becomes effective when it is conducted in real-time. Labour costs and data collection inaccuracies associated with staff taking regular measurements throughout the day on energy meters can be totally eliminated.
When assets fail, instant alarms can be sent to remedy the situation before excessive amounts of energy is wasted.
Peaks and troughs
Realtime energy meter monitoring makes it easier to identify trends such as high and low energy consumption.
By reviewing energy trends over the course of a given time period presents the best options to reduce consumption and possible re-scheduling options in order to minimise usage.
Spook's realtime energy meter monitoring is completely scaleable, meaning monitoring single buildings or an entire estate of facilities can be achieved in an enterprise centric solution.
Maximising efficiency
Energy efficiency is key in helping to reduce the cost of the bottom line or limiting an organisations impact on the environment.
The cost of providing energy across all industry sectors is increasing at an eye watering level. This is caused by our over reliance on fossil fuels, the return to pre-Covid levels of energy consumption and global energy insecurity.
Obviously operating more efficiently reduces energy consumption, meaning significant savings can be achieved on utility bills. For example, by applying effective energy management to an industrial or commercial building presents the potential to save thousands each year.
Climate change
According to the Department of Energy & Climate Change, the average SME (Small to Medium Enterprise) could reduce its energy bills by up to 25% by installing energy efficiency measures which could achieve an average payback of less than 1.5 years.
Reduce carbon footprints
When implementing changes from proactive energy meter monitoring means reducing consumption is actually achievable and as a consequence carbon emissions can also be reduced. This is a key factor in helping organisations reach their sustainable policy goals.
Energy initiatives
Government funds - SME grants
With increases in energy prices predicted to rise by more than 50% in the next 5 years and the government introducing carbon reduction goals, many organisations are prioritising energy efficiency projects.
The Government is also providing grants for SME's with funding worth almost £5 billion* to help UK businesses become greener as part of the government's commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
* Information correct as of February 2022.
Service provider initiatives - Time-of-use tariffs
Energy usually costs more on the wholesale market at peak times – it’s a simple case of supply and demand. So energy suppliers tend to pay more to obtain energy during the day, which is typically the most expensive time as demand is high.
The upside is that energy costs less outside the peak hours, which is why some energy providers offer time-of-use tariffs that charge lower rates to businesses for the electricity they use at off-peak times.
The price of each unit of energy on these tariffs can vary throughout a 24-hour period, and even on different days of the week.
So if your business can be flexible with how and when it uses energy, a time-of-use tariff could save you money. You could even consider changing your routines and processes so that you move to off-peak usage for some or all of your main energy-consuming activities.
By measuring when metered energy is being used can identify opportunities for organisations to opt into a time-of-use tariff.
OmniWatch key features
Cloud based
OmniWatch is cloud based and is accessed via any internet enabled device.
Digital dashboards
OmniWatch dashboards provide interactive and intuitive access to sensor readings 24/7.
Scaleable installations
Totally scaleable from a handful of sensors to a global solution monitoring 1000s of devices.
Trend analysis
Sensor readings are held in perpetuity; providing accurate historical trend analysis.
Automated reporting
Comprehensive reports can be scheduled to be auto emailed daily, weekly and monthly.
Spook monitors our energy consumption by collecting metrics from our various Schneider PowerLogic PM800 series power meters installed across our data centre estate.
We now accurately measure the power consumption per phase in real-time ranging from Amps, kW, kWh and other important power metrics.
We can create Spook Smart Sensors to aggregate usage where necessary in order to help us ensure energy security, pro-active load-balancing and to apply power efficiency calculations in-line with our sustainability policy KPI's.
Capita Business Services - An international business outsourcing company.
Spook monitors a wide range of power devices
New to monitoring
We help organisations start monitoring projects from scratch. We have a wealth of experience that is free and helpful in creating an informed approach to monitoring.
We are also resellers to industry leading sensor and equipment manufacturers and can recommend the most appropriate hardware and sensors to fit any size monitoring project.
We had been considering monitoring for a while but did not have the resource or the knowledge to fully understand how to go about doing things from scratch.
We approached Spook as they have lots of experience in looking independently at monitoring projects. They recommended and provided the most appropriate hardware and sensors for us.
The sensors arrived pre-configured and were implemented on OmniWatch by Spook before we installed them.
Additional monitoring
Many of our customers have tried monitoring for themselves.
This ranges from institutions that rely on equipment onboard data loggers and communications cards; to organisations that have started monitoring projects but need help to extend monitoring to new areas and/or implement a central monitoring solution.
We needed a remote monitoring service that did not require an on premise PC and was independent of our network.
Spook provided pre-configured cellular routers for each of our five locations across the UK. The whole project was a simple plug-and-play solution with no involvement from us.
We had been considering monitoring for a while but did not have the resource or the knowledge to fully understand how to go about doing things.
When we Googled the various areas of interest we got more confused.
We approached Spook as they have a different outlook to simply buying hardware and sensors. Thankfully we now have a fully installed, joined up monitoring solution.
We had a series of climate monitors installed in our server rooms. Due to a change in our security policy we needed a remote monitoring service that did not require an on premise PC and was independent of our network.
Spook suggested a technology upgrade and provided pre-configured cellular routers for each of our five server locations across the UK. The whole project was a simple plug-and-play solution with no involvement from us.
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