Real Time Energy Management (RTEM) is an innovative strategy that empowers property owners, building managers and tenants to reduce overall costs by monitoring and controlling consumption. RTEM systems send a building’s live and historical performance data to a cloud-based system, where it is transformed into actionable insights.
This enables proactive monitoring, predictive analytics, as well as fault detection and diagnostics. If these concepts are new to you, read on for a brief overview for beginners.
Real-Time Monitoring
Real-Time Monitoring is a technology that connects to your electricity meter and offers your insight into the inner workings of your home’s electrical system. If you’d like to know more, read here before continuing on. However, it enables you to see exactly how much power appliances are using and provides tips for further cutting back on consumption and saving money.
Utility bills provide a general overview of your electricity use, but are usually lacking in specifics. Power monitors connect to your meter to collect data and send it directly to a mobile app where you can view real-time figures like kilowatt-hours and dollars.
These systems connect to your electrical panel and learn each appliance’s electrical signatures, tracking how it uses electricity as well as when running or unplugged. They then make recommendations for cutting down on energy use while sending notifications if it detects an open refrigerator door or faulty appliance.
Some devices may come equipped with a mobile app, which provides an in-depth view of your power use in real time and allows you to monitor progress toward savings goals. Some apps even let you share this data with family or friends for added insight and accountability.
No matter which monitoring device you opt for, make sure it offers a mobile app. Being able to access your data while on-the-go is an immense advantage of real-time monitoring; not only does this give you peace of mind but also allows for convenient management of power costs!
Real-Time Analytics
Real-Time Analytics is a crucial tool that helps businesses save expenses and increase operational efficiency. It provides information on how different energy sectors are performing, helping businesses to make data-driven decisions for a more sustainable and effective operation.
Each organization may benefit greatly from real-time information on energy use. It gives employees knowledge into how their everyday activities affect a company’s power use, enabling them to make decisions that are better for the environment while also enabling businesses to notice power surges and excess usage before they become a problem.
Several sensors can be used to capture real-time data. It aids in trend detection, locating areas for optimization, and projecting performance going forward. By preheating buildings in colder weather before people occupy them, it may also help minimize demand-related energy expenditures by reducing peak demand.
Energy is a significant expenditure and a crucial consideration when making decisions about operations and output. A unified power information management system may receive precise physical process data from industrial automation systems and metering systems, giving businesses the opportunity to track numerous performance indicators from a single place.
Yet, in order to give relevant insight into operational efficiency and variances, raw process and meter data must be structured with reporting and analytics. These technologies provide a fascinating chance to improve power-related reporting and performance monitoring, even if they haven’t yet been adopted by the whole industry.
Real-Time Reporting
Real-time energy reporting provides power managers with the capability to measure and monitor their entire utility consumption and costs in real time. This gives them the information needed to make data-driven decisions that reduce energy use, save money, and boost efficiency.
Power managers may more precisely track their energy-saving goals by using real-time power data and monitoring to proactively lower base loads, assess peak times, spot anomalies, and schedule operations more efficiently. They may also use this information for equipment operation best practices, rebate applications and making sure all energy consumption is being recorded accurately.
Real-time monitoring and reporting can improve employee engagement with corporate sustainability goals and foster an awareness of energy consumption across the company. This could result in reduced costs, improved employee retention rates, and increased productivity levels.
New York City’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services (https://www.nyc.gov/site/dcas/agencies/real-time-metering.page) has implemented a program to install real-time electricity meters across their facilities, which allow ongoing tracking and monitoring of building electrical consumption. This technology promises better visibility and analytical insights than traditional sub metering, with the City planning to install 750 meters by 2022.
While many businesses are beginning to integrate real-time monitoring into their operations, there remain some challenges when collecting and analyzing granular utility data. These obstacles include:
One solution to these challenges is Cufflink, a cloud-based solution designed to collect disparate utility data and correlate it. It then uses this correlated information to calculate composite utility consumption and spend for buildings in real time. Cufflink’s cloud-based portal presents this data visually through various reporting formats.