Trading, manufacturing, and service companies as well as entities such as hospitals and public organisations tend to perceive energy as a necessary cost item which is constantly growing.
They do not pay much attention to it, because some of their managers believe that continuous consumption monitoring, identifying inefficiencies, and adapting their power consumption to the “reserved capacity” contracted with their energy distributor is too complicated, if not impossible.
And yet for many businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, energy is one of the largest cost items. The most energy-intensive sectors include food, pulp and paper, and the chemical industry as well as services. Indeed, the industrial and services sectors account for almost two-fifths of the EU’s total energy consumption (including households).
It is often said that if you cannot measure it, you cannot manage and optimise it. Energy is a perfect example of this. Only a detailed overview of the largest expenditures or leaks and an understanding of when, where, and how they occur can make subsequent remedial action possible.
The good news is that current technologies based on the Internet of Things (IoT) make it relatively simple to monitor energy consumption in great detail. The basis for this is the use of smart meters providing real-time data on the consumption of energy such as electricity or water. Based on our experience at Soitron, our customers achieve energy cost savings by using this technology in the three following ways:
Identification of errors and energy wastage
The first way to use metering to reduce energy consumption, and thus also your costs and carbon footprint, is to compare invoices from the energy provider against your own metering. This can reveal energy losses, such as water pipe leaks in larger industrial facilities.
More detailed consumption metering, monitoring, and comparisons also tend to reveal unnecessary waste, such as when a specific facility has a significantly higher consumption than other comparable ones. A detailed consumption overview has helped some companies realise that they kept their air conditioning running unnecessarily, even on weekends or outside work hours. In our experience, organisations can save up to five percent of their energy costs in the first year after metering implementation.
Current consumption and energy supply contract optimisation
If a company is unable to monitor their electricity consumption over time and actively manage individual energy consuming systems, they can easily repeatedly exceed their reserved capacity. In such cases, distribution companies charge penalties for overconsumption, often amounting to several thousand euros.
Some organisations deal with this problem by increasing their reserved capacity. However, such a solution may turn out to be even more costly as they have to pay higher fixed charges for a capacity that they seldom use.
A smarter solution is to meter the energy consumption continuously and to intervene when necessary by temporarily turning down room chilling or reconfiguring the operation of any large appliances that do not necessarily have to all run at the same time. A similar approach can be used to avoid power outages if the infrastructure is hitting its technology ceiling and the distributor is unable to reserve a higher capacity.
Feedback for maintenance and changes in behaviour
Detailed reports on energy consumption down to the level of individual workplaces or even machines may also have other positive effects. For instance, they provide more insight into the technical condition and the intensity of use of machines. If the consumption is too high, it may indicate a fault, but if it is too low it may indicate that the machine is not being used enough.
Finally, if the metering results are well communicated, they also help to change employee behaviour, which can lead to further savings and higher efficiency.
Conclusion Of course, there are several ways to achieve energy savings. A company can change their energy supplier, try to get better conditions by renegotiating the energy supply contract, and invest in more energy-efficient machines and equipment.
However, consumption metering is very affordable and can be implemented relatively quickly, which is why it is proving to be one of the most effective ways to reduce energy costs. Contact our IoT team and find out how much your organisation can save on energy.
