Real-Time Data for Real-Time Demand Management
Next-Generation Building Energy Management Systems Answer The Call, by Peter Sharer, Automated Buildings June 2011.
The facility manager’s mandate is clear – reduce operating costs by trimming energy use while simultaneously improving systems reliability to ensure occupant comfort. Piece of cake, right? With the next-generation of building energy management systems, there’s a much clearer and shorter path to meet this mandate.
By combining new sensor technologies for real-time energy data collection, a data store and energy diagnostics reports, these new BEMs now make it economical to access and manage demand in real-time – in any building. How? With visibility into the overall energy footprint via energy profiling at the source – such as a lighting or power panel, down to the individual piece of equipment – these BEMs reveal a facility's energy profile and allow building staff to pinpoint energy-wasting systems or procedures.
For those working on energy efficiency retrofits under CALgreen (CA Title 24) or the new Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), electricity monitoring is now an essential – often mandatory – project requirement. Why? Because it works to trim energy consumption.
