Device-level data can be a huge benefit for organizations as they build their energy strategy.
Understanding how your business consumes energy is crucial when it comes to optimizing your energy strategy and making improvements to your energy infrastructure.
While many businesses use building management systems that provide them with a top-level view of their energy use, this doesn’t offer the granularity of device-level data. Tracking the energy consumption of each device provides your business with real-time visibility that not only helps to reduce waste, but can also give you insight into where you can optimize and monetize your energy.
Obtaining real-time data at device-level provides businesses with valuable energy insights. This enables businesses to monitor their energy usage, identify areas of inefficiency and gain a deeper understanding of their energy estate to leverage energy flexibility to reduce costs, or create a new revenue stream.
The more you know about your energy infrastructure and how your business consumes energy, the more effectively you can manage it. Monitoring your assets at device-level helps you gain the power of insight so you can:
Reduce energy costs
Improve efficiencies
Optimize your energy generating and storing assets
Plan for maintenance and downtime
Unlock new revenue streams
Identify where new energy technologies could add value
Implement and drive employee behavioral change
Real-time energy management at device-level provides the granular data your business needs to understand exactly how your business uses energy and where costs can be saved or avoided. By reducing the costs associated with energy — particularly energy waste — businesses can reinvest in their overall strategy.
Reinvestment could be in additional energy sources, such as on site generation like Combined Heat and Power (CHP) or standby generators, which boost the business’s overall energy resiliency — or Solar and Storage, which provides an efficient and low cost source of on-site power and flexibility. By balancing sources, businesses have more control over their costs — including when they can turn things off and on — and identify opportunities to earn revenue through programs such as Demand Response (DR).
Demand Response helps to unlock value from energy. Businesses help the grid balance supply and demand by reducing or shifting energy consumption, and the grid pays users for this flexibility.
Device-level data can provide your business with granular visibility of your operations and processes. Predictive maintenance alerts can be used to notify businesses of potential, costly downtime through early detection of equipment failure. By collecting historical data, businesses can better plan maintenance and repairs. By being able to plan your maintenance more effectively, you also improve productivity, reduce costs and extend the life of your equipment. Machine learning technology can learn a businesses energy usage patterns and send alerts and notifications when anomalies are detected.
Energy waste is often not caused by the devices themselves, but those who operate them. Specific monitoring at device-level can be used to inform employees of how their actions can affect energy usage. It can also be used to educate them about the changes they could make to help optimize the energy strategy.
Some providers can offer a centralized platform that will help you to collect and manage your energy data. Such a platform sits at the heart of your energy strategy, giving you complete and detailed visibility into your energy performance in one easy-to-use energy management platform accessible via desktop, tablet or mobile application.
Want to know more? Our energy insights solutions are generating new opportunities across all types of industry. Contact our experts to find out how we can help you power new levels of performance today.
