3 Ways to Monitor Energy Usage
Monitoring your energy usage is important for when you are looking to reduce the amount of energy used within your business. The easiest way to monitor energy consumption is to understand how your equipment uses energy daily to better control possible wastage.
But first, let's take a look at what a multi-site meter is and how it can be beneficial for your business to have this process in place when you want to monitor energy usage.
What is a Multi-Site Meter?
A multi-site meter is a meter that gives businesses that have multiple businesses in different locations the opportunity to have their energy bill under one account.
This will make the process of billing easier as you keep all your business data under one supplier and only pay for one account. If you want to learn about multi-site energy meters you can follow the link and read up on which business industries can benefit the most from using the multi-site energy meters.
The Benefits of Using a Multi-Site Meter
These are benefits to using the multi-site meter in your business.
- All business properties are moved under one easy-to-use contract.
You can have all business locations filed under one contract which means that you only deal with one energy supplier no matter which areas/locations you have your businesses in.
- You can easily keep track of all energy usages.
Since all energy uses are documented and recorded for billing persons, it is easy to monitor how much energy each business is using, and therefore you can reduce energy usage in certain areas that are using too much unnecessary energy.
- You only have to worry about one contract renewal date.
You don't have to worry about missing renewal contract dates or having to put on an out-of-contract tariff which can be costly especially with the price increase of energy prices.
- Save on energy expenses.
You don't have to run around and take the only available deal that is on offer for your business, having all your energy bills under one supplier can make it cheaper when looking for an energy supplier.
3 Ways You Can Monitor Energy Usage
Install gas and energy meters to measure the energy consumption
There are different types of meters that you can choose to install to monitor your business's energy usage. These all depend on which meter is better suited to your business, you can also use a registered electrician to help you decide which of these meters would be beneficial.
- Smart clamp-on energy meters
These measure motor energy usage.
- Circuit-breaker meters
This meter will measure electricity usage in a certain area or in specific equipment.
- Smart submeters
These meters will measure specific equipment for their gas and energy usage.
- Smart meters
These meters will measure the usage of energy and gas of the business and display it online.
These meters have three levels at which they analyse and monitor your energy and gas usage. The facility level is to understand how much energy the whole business is using. The system level is to help you understand the amount of energy that all systems are using and the subsystem is to understand how much energy specific equipment requires to work efficiently.
To have these meters installed, you would have to hire an electrician, and if you want to have a gas meter installed you would need a plumber.
Allocate analysis of energy data to an employee
To be able to make sense of what the meters are recording you need to either hire a professional to monitor and analyse the data or use an employee to keep track of all the data that is recorded.
These people will take the data and compare it to previous energy data and also look for any abnormalities in the data.
If there are no abnormalities found within the data, it needs to be closely monitored on a regular basis to ensure that nothing has changed unexpectedly.
Use Energy Efficient methods to monitor and control energy usage
You can reduce the amount of energy that is being used by monitoring and using energy efficient techniques to minimise them.
Turning off equipment when not in use can be one of the changes that the business implements to save on energy usage, as well as switching off unnecessary lights and opening windows for fresh air instead of using air-conditioners.
Conclusion
Using the multi-site energy meter can help businesses keep all of their energy bills in one place and also help you monitor your business energy usage without having to use different suppliers.
These meters can also be used within the normal market tariffs which includes the fixed-rate tariff, the variable tariff and the green energy tariff.
You can also use the other above-mentioned methods to monitor your business energy usage and control the amount of energy that is used to save on the energy bill without having to switch to different suppliers with cheaper tariffs.