Today, it has become crucial to reduce energy costs and transition to renewable sources, given the rapid increase in these expenses. In Europe, between December 2020 and December 2021, the import price for energy more than doubled, and market prices for electricity, gas, and other fuels rose by 25%.
Apart from the growing monthly bills, businesses are now concerned about their greenhouse gas emissions, with high energy usage being a significant contributor. Companies across all industries actively seek ways to optimize energy usage without disrupting their operations to reduce costs and carbon footprints.
An energy management system (EMS) presents a comprehensive energy solution to these challenges. Its primary function is to empower business owners to track, monitor, and manage their building's energy consumption through a single dashboard, helping them find areas to cut down.
What is an Energy Management System?
An energy management system is an automated platform that collects and analyzes the data on how much energy your building consumes 24/7, monitors equipment pieces for any prompt consumption spikes, and provides recommendations on what you could do to reduce the energy consumption in the building.
An EMS comprises meters, sensors, and devices for energy measurement and monitoring consumption. The devices subsequently send the data wirelessly to a central server, where an advanced application assists users in analyzing the information and making informed decisions. Using the application, users can:
- Define their energy goals and needs.
- Automatically generate reports on energy usage and predictions for the future.
- Determine energy management objectives.
- Alert the building owners about any suspicious usage changes.
- Using in-built sensors to monitor and manage functions for all energy-consuming devices in the office, such as heating, lighting, and AC.
- Collect data regarding the outcomes of energy-saving actions.
Why Invest in Energy Management System Solutions?
1. Energy savings and cost reduction: The energy management system empowers you to analyze and extrapolate energy usage and costs data to offer a comprehensive overview of trends related to this information. By doing so, it alerts you to potential issues such as overpaying for energy and identifies opportunities for reducing consumption and costs. This data-driven approach enables informed decision-making, allowing businesses to optimize energy usage, improve efficiency, and save money on energy expenses.
2. Increase ROI: EMS has incredibly affordable features such as revenue-generating programs, emitting lower power during peak hours, and discovering energy leaks. These features provide a return on investment in installing an EMS in the workplace.
3. Corporate responsibility: Embracing smart energy practices and promoting corporate responsibility can open doors to a broader customer base with a growing demand for eco-friendly initiatives. By catering to these environmentally conscious customers, businesses can increase their profits while contributing to a sustainable future. This approach benefits the bottom line and enhances the company's reputation and brand image, further bolstering its competitiveness in the market.
4. Manages the HVAC system: Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems are considered as biggest energy consumers in workplaces. A significant portion of total energy consumption is attributed to HVAC usage. However, an energy management system's load disaggregation feature offers valuable insights into HVAC usage and detailed information about other equipment's energy consumption.
5. Enhances the facility performance: A well-designed EMS boosts employee engagement and productivity and improves overall building performance. By reducing operating costs and minimizing energy waste, the EMS results in substantial financial savings, allowing businesses to allocate more funds to critical areas such as promotions, marketing, and product development.
Benefits of an Energy Management System to Different Function Units
Energy management is a company-wide strategy that impacts several teams and functions. A focused energy management software solution will be implemented across the organization and offer varying benefits to each team as mentioned below:
- Energy managers
- Provides complete visibility and control of energy-linked data and consumption costs across the portfolios/organization.
- Enables energy managers to keep pace with ever-reforming regulations and reporting needs.
- Offers detailed documentation on all energy data, such as the range of meters across a portfolio, the different equipment used, and others.
- It can manage energy costs and proactively adhere to management expectations.
2. Production
- Reduces operational costs.
- Enables the deployment of directions/instructions across broad portfolios.
- Enhances assets profitability.
- Sets and measures against objectives.
- Decreases the need for technical meetings.
- Provides ROI projection and spend tracking.
3. Information systems
- Enhances data and system security.
- Offers an enhanced overview of new standards like new legislation, GDPR, and ISO.
- Supplier technologies and future proofs technologies across the organization.
In Conclusion
Help your customers make informed and proactive energy efficiency choices by offering advanced energy management systems or tools. These tools provide real-time insights into their energy consumption patterns and spending, helping them uncover money-saving opportunities. Additionally, this enables companies to plan accurate budgets that can be used to invest in other energy-efficient technologies.
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