EN ERGY
P ilo t Gro u p
apart from base load consumption such as fire alarms and emergency lighting.
Why is it proving so difficult to convince business owners to take a serious look at their energy outputs? don’t know – and that lack of understanding can be overcome with simple steps. Advanced meters and smart meters can each provide an accurate measurement of energy use. There are many different types of advanced monitoring systems to build a detailed picture of energy useage. However, simply obtaining your half hourly meter information from your electricity provider can be the starting point to help provide valuable insights into your energy efficiency. Smart meters are also booming in popularity as they provide real time readings of energy use, and automatically send readings to suppliers. Smart meters and half hourly meter readings allow you to monitor and analyse energy-use patterns throughout the day, which can then be assessed against operational hours. For a business that operates 9am to 5pm, you will most likely see spikes in energy consumption during that time, with zero energy usage outside of these hours,
Seeing large spikes outside of operational hours is costly and easily fixable through an energy management system to measure energy consumption. Recent years have seen a proliferation in energy management system technology, bringing sophisticated systems and processes into play. Sub-metering is growing in popularity, as a method that gathers more granular energy consumption information about a business or site, pinning down the energy usage across different areas of buildings and pieces of equipment. This also often acts as an early warning system for any equipment that may need maintenance.
PILOT GROUP thepilotgroup.co.uk
It’s vital that businesses consistently monitor and measure energy usage: the more data you have, the more detailed your energy profile will be. There’s a common fear that green technology is a costly investment, however, most energy efficient solutions are relatively inexpensive, and the question I always ask my customers is: can you afford not to? Research by the Carbon Trust shows that most businesses can achieve meaningful cost savings through cutting energy consumption and that even low and no-cost action can usually reduce costs by at least 10%. And looking at the three main barriers which stop businesses from implementing energy management, it is clear they are all easy to overcome.
Pilot Group designs smart, safe and sustainable infrastructure solutions, with clients ranging from SMES to Amazon, Tesco, National Rail, and local authorities.
39