Having a solid understanding of an organization’s operations is essential for making impactful change. For example, you can’t figure out how to improve margins if you don’t know the cost of every material, part, and process that goes into making your product. You can’t improve the productivity of your employees if you don’t understand the processes and tasks that they spend their day working on. You can’t increase your energy efficiency and implement green initiatives if you don’t have an understanding of how much energy is used by the different devices utilized or operations performed within your organization.
That last example is important, especially today. With climate change, a scientifically accepted reality, and our planet beginning to show the effects, companies around the globe are feeling pressure from customers and governments to increase energy efficiency and implement green initiatives. Many would do so themselves, even without the threat of climate change, since energy usage is expensive, and increasing energy efficiency also improves their bottom lines.
As we discussed, they can only really make positive changes in their energy efficiency and usage if they truly know and understand how they’re using energy today. ‘Simple,” you might say, “Just look at the meter provided by the energy company.” But does that really provide all of the information that’s necessary?
Looking at the meter provided by the local utility only tells you how much energy the larger facility or building is using. If a facility manager or building owner really wants to understand how they’re using electricity within that building, they need to gain transparency into the unique energy usage of just a few circuits or devices.
That’s where submetering products and solutions can come into play. Submeters can give users actionable insights into how energy is being used within their facility and by their devices.
What is a submeter?
Submeters, such as those manufactured by companies like Measurelogic, don’t replace the meter provided by the utility. They work independently from them to give users actionable insights into how energy is being used within their facility and by their devices. By giving facility owners and managers insights into which circuits are using the most energy, they can then make decisions that can help them reduce their energy consumption and save on their energy costs.
Take an industrial facility that manufactures products on four separate manufacturing lines as an example. The utility-provided meter simply reports on the combined power consumption of all four manufacturing lines. Utilizing Measurlogic’s submeter solutions, the owners of that facility can gain more granular insights into which of the four manufacturing lines is using the most energy,or which of the devices in those four manufacturing lines are using the most energy,and work to reduce their power consumption.
In that example, the submeter is providing the additional, specific insight and intelligence needed to make an impactful change in operations and improve energy efficiency. That’s impressive. But the power of these devices becomes even more impressive when they’re connected to the cloud.
More insight, more analysis
Many submeters offer integrated connectivity with building management solutions (BMS), such as Modbus, BACnet, and LonWorks. This makes it possible to aggregate and analyze energy consumption data within that BMS.
Many companies want the ability to utilize third-party analytics applications to even further dissect and analyze their data. Other organizations may not be sophisticated or large enough to even have a BMS in place, but still have a need for remote energy usage monitoring and visualization.
Submeter manufacturers such as Measurlogic are taking the added step of cloud-enabling their submeters so that the owners can log-in from anywhere with an active Internet connection and access device data. This allows submeter owners to monitor their energy consumption remotely and download that data for analysis and visualization using third party data analytics tools.
Most importantly, the combination of cloud-enabled submeters and data analytics tools enables building owners and facilities managers to utilize their data to garner actionable insights into energy consumption and increase energy efficiency. They can do this regardless of whether they have an established, installed BMS or building automation solution.
Ultimately, as power costs rise and environmental sustainability becomes increasingly important for companies, submeters from equipment manufacturers like Measurlogic are providing the tools enterprises need to increase energy efficiency and decrease costs.
Have questions? Contact us to get your questions answered or to schedule a demo. Visit our website to learn more.
