How you can benefit from an energy management system

ISO 50001

Electricity bills are a big cost for business owners. The good news is that improving efficiency can help reduce the cost of electricity bills and bring significant benefits to business people. According to IEA’s 2018 energy efficiency report, energy efficiency improvements since 2000 have prevented a 12% increase in energy use in 2017.

From installing LED lighting to upgrading heating and cooling systems, businesses can implement a range of strategies to lower their energy footprint and at the same time improve property value and reduce operating costs. Other solutions include but are not limited to building sealing and insulation, power factor correction, and improving the quality of supply. This does not mean that you need to change some of your expensive assets. However, before acting, you should understand your energy profile to know which energy reduction strategies will best suit your business needs. This can be provided by energy management systems.

Here are some reasons why you should have an energy management system for your business.

1.) Know Your Energy Needs

Here’s an energy management strategy that will help you understand your consumption patterns i.e., when you’re using your energy most intensely and which kinds of processes or equipment are contributing to this.  You can pinpoint your energy waste with advanced data analytics.

Hence, reduction in your consumption will transform costs to savings and better your consumption patterns. In addition, if your business has operations in different locations, energy management systems will provide benchmarking across your offices/ branches/depots/ shops, etc.

2.) Improve Your Power Factor To Reduce Your Electricity Bill

An energy management system will also show your active and reactive power data which you will need to understand your power factor. 

Power factor represents the relationship between real and apparent power.

Power factor is between 0 and 1, and a higher value means higher efficiency.

There are several types of power factor correction equipment like capacitors, static compensators, etc. which are used mainly for reactive power compensation and voltage regulation. Capacitors are generally a good fit in industries because of relatively cheaper installation costs compared to other measures. However, capacitors should be designed and sized properly to avoid the amplification of harmonics (resonance phenomena) generated by disturbing loads such as arc furnaces, welding machines or rectifiers. To avoid this, either harmonic filters or static compensators can be used.

3.) Track Your Energy KPIs To Reduce Your Operational Cost

Building energy performance can also be improved by effective energy management systems. Different business segments have different performance criteria; for example, consumption/m², kWh/occupant rate for hotels, etc.

The energy management system also enables to set a target value like targeted electricity consumption/month and targeted cost/month so that deviations will be easily tracked and identified.  In addition, an energy management system provides a comparison between the previous and the current situation for energy efficiency assessments and helps to systematically develop KPIs.

4.) Reduce Your Electricity Demand Charge

 A demand charge is a part of commercial bill where a daily charge is determined by the highest power demand (load) observed during a certain timeframe during the day in a specified period. It is usually the maximum demand at a 15- or 30-min interval and calculated on kVA or kW. Your electricity bill will mostly be influenced by the highest demand for used energy at this particular point in time.

One of the main reasons kVA demand charges are being introduced is to encourage customers to improve their power factor. A poor power factor places higher demands on the electricity network. As you can see below invoice, the network demand charge in kVA contributes has the biggest portion of the total electricity bill.

5.) Being Aware Of Your Solar System Health

Owning a solar system will give you a big chance to reduce your electricity cost and demand charges, but it is very important to know if your solar system is working as expected.

The energy management system will send production in real time, so if there is any failure in your system, you will get a notification and you will not wait for your next electricity bill to take action.

The energy management system will also give expected and actual production values to track your system performance for previous and current periods.

6.) Your HVAC System Is Under Control.

HVAC is one of the biggest energy consuming equipment and needs to work efficiently.

Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) is generally responsible for a significant proportion of total building energy consumption. A typical system accounts for approximately 40% of total building consumption and 70% of base building (i.e., landlord)

7.) Energy Consumption In Buildings

• Load disaggregation option of energy management system will provide more insight about your HVAC and other energy consumed equipment load details. Reduction in energy use of HVAC can be achieved, and some of the strategies are:
• Change or clean your HVAC filters
• Identify optimum set points
• Identify energy waste times