A greater awareness of environmental protection in the last years has prompted individuals and businesses globally to adopt energy conservation initiatives, including the use of smart meters and energy and utility analytics. A growing number of tenants, property managers, and businesses are looking for ways to minimize energy consumption. Sub-metering systems allow the collection of large amounts of critical data that can be accessed and analyzed in a number of ways to achieve various goals from improving energy efficiency in buildings to tracking ROI and saving money.
The new generation of Smart Sub-metering systems are IoT energy devices that allow for two-way communication, connecting consumers to the utility or landlord that provides the services. They send operation information to consumers, property managers and utility agencies, helping property managers and utility providers understand consumption better and address any performance issues. In terms of collecting and processing data, a smart submeter offers real-time insights into a property’s performance.
The more granular (detailed) the data collected the more valuable it is, and the more information that can be derived from the data obtained, the easier it is to make the right decisions. It is therefore, crucial to select the best way to keep it and manage it. In that sense, Cloud Hosting offers some interesting benefits:
Cloud-based systems allow tenants and property managers to access data with greater flexibility. The information can also be sent from different data acquisition points and accessed and analyzed from various sites with a single application. By sub metering a residential, commercial, or industrial building, and hosting the data in the cloud, the data can be accessed remotely, even on a mobile device, reducing on-site maintenance to only when it is absolutely necessary.
Cloud Technologies are equipped with software that enables managers to set limits, thresholds and/or alarms to pinpoint tenant spaces and buildings with higher energy consumption. Once the Database is established correlation programs can be implemented to detect usage patterns, analyze them and determine actionable steps like Demand Response for better energy management and reduced costs.
User experience improves when tenants are allowed to access data and engage with the cloud-based software. Their ability to interact with energy data promotes better understanding and responsible consumption behaviors. Therein lies the power of a good utility sub-metering system.
Hosting utility consumption data in the cloud is especially beneficial to energy and facilities managers of large properties in addition to consultants, tenants or individual owners; as the data is connected to one online system, cloud submetering, can support many properties and many clients accessing the database at once.
Manual data collecting and distributing utility costs are processes prone to errors, and are time-consuming. Once the meter readings are in the cloud, automated processes collect, store, and process data, including billing. As these systems are automated once properly programmed, ensuring accuracy, they greatly improve efficiency. The automated metering system and real-time data also eliminate issues of inaccurate billing.
Energy costs are crucial to the economy, so cities and states are carrying out mandatory energy assessment reporting. The process of determining and disclosing patterns on energy use leads to the overall behavioral changes in energy consumption. Using a sub-meter to record data and host it in the cloud makes the job easier for property managers and industrial facility owners to disclose this information.
Data in the cloud is safeguarded against hardware failure and is distributed across redundant servers with strict security measures. Cloud servers also provide automated snapshots and backups in case there is a system breakdown.
Cloud-based solutions in the energy sector are growing in popularity. They have become an increasingly viable option for many businesses. Thanks to automated data collection and processing by submetering technologies, tenants, building owners, managers, and engineers can easily access it in the cloud and get valuable information about energy consumption.