Enterprise energy monitoring system: types & benefits

Managing energy consumption effectively is an ongoing process. With the rising energy costs, industries and organizations are increasingly aiming for energy efficiency of their infrastructure to minimize their environmental impact while simultaneously enhancing their revenues. One possible solution to this is the usage of an IoT-based energy management system that will enable tracking, monitoring, and management of energy usage. These solutions can be utilized to manage and optimize energy consumption patterns by taking complete control of energy data at the most fundamental and granular level.

What is an Energy Management System?

Energy management involves planning, monitoring, and management of energy consumption patterns across industries. IoT-based energy management system monitors and optimizes energy compliance thereby improving better capacity utilization, boosting business productivity, reducing maintenance & manpower, and increasing the reliability of energy assets.

The global Internet of Things (IoT) in energy market size is expected to grow to $35.2 billion by 2025 from $20.2 billion in 2020 as per market research reports. IoT-backed sensors keep an eye on consumption patterns and provide insights into inefficient areas which in turn help to analyze energy consumption usage and pattern.

• Reduce costs - increasingly important as energy costs rise.
• Reduce carbon emissions – to reduce the environmental damage and promote a green, sustainable planet.
• Reduce risk – the more energy you consume, the greater the risk that energy price increases or supply shortages could seriously affect your profitability,
• Reduce consumption – to promote conservation of energy

How best to manage your energy consumption?

Energy management is the key to saving energy in your organization. Much of the importance of energy saving shoots from the pressing need to save natural energy resources. This global need to save energy affects energy prices, emissions targets, operations, and compliance. All the above lead to being cost and energy efficient simultaneously.

Here are four steps to help you become energy efficient:

1. Meter your energy consumption

Modern energy-data collection involves interval-metering systems that automatically measure and record energy consumption at short, regular intervals, and transmit the details to the cloud, which then relays it to the user interface of your choice. Detailed interval energy consumption data makes it possible to see patterns of energy waste that it would be impossible to see otherwise.

Sensors and meters are pre-embedded on your deployments, which can measure and transmit the consumption data in real time. IoT based smart meters also help in measuring the consumption data. This meter data is transmitted via the cloud to the user.

2. Identify opportunities to save energy

The detailed meter data that you are collecting will be invaluable for helping you to find and quantify energy-saving opportunities. Looking at detailed interval energy data is the ideal way to find routine energy waste.

The IoT based meters and sensors embedded in devices also give real time information about breakdowns and help in identifying the devices consuming more energy. Thus, you can zero in on the areas of more energy consumption and suitably take actions.

3. Target the prospects to save energy

As for those energy-saving opportunities that require you to upgrade equipment or insulation, identify them and diligently work towards energy efficiency. IoT based meters and sensors can help you identify such areas and prospects. Correct your equipment and faulty devices and meter your consumption to keep track.

4. Track energy efficiency

Energy savings that come from behavioral changes need ongoing attention to ensure that they remain effective and achieve their maximum potential. If you have invested money into new equipment, it will take you towards the energy savings you predicted.

If the faulty timers or control-equipment settings have been corrected, you will need to keep checking back to ensure that everything is still working as it should be. The user interface of modern energy monitoring and management systems can help you with the analysis to track your energy consumption.

By analyzing your energy consumption, energy monitoring systems can help you reduce your usage. Energy monitoring systems can also help spot potentially faulty devices that are wastefully drawing power. Besides you can also use the energy monitoring and management systems for predictive maintenance and pro-active monitoring.

Components of IoT based energy monitoring systems

IoT based energy monitoring systems record the electricity use in your deployment and enable you to track the individual device energy consumption. Several kinds of energy monitors are on the market, functioning in different ways. Two popular kinds are:

Individual-device monitors: These monitors track the real-time energy consumption of individual appliances and electrical devices.

Deployment monitors: These monitors track the energy consumption of your building/organization/industry/deployment by connecting electrical devices to electric meters or boxes. Such monitors collect energy use data over a set amount of time at the circuit level and relay the information to your smartphone or accessible website.

IoT based energy monitoring systems have unique features and mechanisms, which can be divided into four different components:

• Connected IoT devices – IoT connects devices across your deployment so that they communicate with each other, and you can manage them well.
• Connectivity solutions - Enables devices to communicate with each other while transmitting data to the cloud or to receive commands from the cloud.
• Data processing software - Performs analysis either at the edge or on-premises that is collected from devices.
• Monitoring and administration software - Provides a user interface that allows users to interact with the IoT system.

Benefits of real time energy monitoring systems

Here we look at the key benefits of a real time energy monitoring system:

• Real time energy efficiency indicators – Real time energy monitoring system to manage resources and increase energy conservation
• Remote operation of appliances – IoT based smart meters enable you to set threshold limits and remotely operate devices and appliances
• Predictive maintenance alerts - Monitor and maintain devices from your smart phone via web access.
• Connected Device indicators – IoT based smart energy meters relay real time data about connected devices on one platform.
• Reports and Analysis - Daily and monthly energy consumption and operational reports on your email
• High levels of scalability – Conveniently ingests data and can work with large data sets in production, without exorbitant hardware or cloud services costs.
• Reduction in operating and energy costs
• Lowered Carbon footprints
• Enhanced return of investments

• EnergyBots designs and develops smart Energy Monitoring Systems for a wide range of industry applications. Our integrated app-based, real-time energy monitoring solutions enable you to make more informed business decisions, to achieve greater operational efficiency, and promote fair usage of energy resources for future generations. EnergyBots smart energy monitoring systems bring together people, machines, cloud computing, and analytics (eBots app) for improved performance and productivity of industrial processes.

  When energy consumption is rising and eating up on profits, it is a matter of concern. Connect with our team of experts to find a solution!

The author of this article is Mrs Aliana. She is a technology blog writer. She writes articles related to IT business services.