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When it comes time to design and Energy Management System for your Company, there are several things to consider. You may have to choose from a wide variety of meters or integrate the meters you have into the system somehow, run instrument or Ethernet cable for communications, choose a software package that will bring it all together and allow a variety of users to access the collected data. All of the above can be done much more effectively if you actually know WHY you want to implement and EMS at your facility.
Power Quality, sub metering and instantaneous voltage are all great buzz words but if you don't have harmonic, power quality or voltage problems then you may be paying for features you simply don't need in an electricity sub meter or Energy Management System. If you goal is to save money by tracking, quantifying and controlling energy use then read on.
The primary benefit of an EMS system is to SAVE MONEY by reducing the costs incurred when you use electricity. The EMS should provide you with the information you need on a minute by minute basis to make decisions regarding your electricity use.
To make decisions you'll need timely information. This means that your EMS will need to read data from your electricity meters on a minute by minute basis. These days, this is usually achieved using the Ethernet Network, therefore it may be important that if you need to add or replace meters for your project, that they are Ethernet Communications ready. If your main Utility Meter hasn't been replaced in the last few years and doesn't support direct communications, there are a couple of ways to get the information you need from these meters. These include:
a) Requesting that the Utility provide an external meter pulse signal that you can bring into your EMS b) Install an Optical reading device that will generate meter pulses that you can utilize c) Having the meter replaced with a Ethernet ready meter
Where direct communications with the meter is not possible, the pulses will need to be brought into a data collection unit that will count the number of pulses generated by the meter. Each meter pulse is equivalent to a specific amount of electricity consumed. This is scaled by the meter multiplier and the number of pulses are measure over specific time intervals to measure the amount of electricity consumed and calculate and PREDICT new peak demand before it occurs.
Saving major money with and Energy Management System is based on your ability to cut electricity load to either
a) Minimizing your peak demand
Additional savings can be found by:
a) Identifying and eliminating energy waste b) Verifying your electricity bills and having any errors corrected c) Aggregating multiple facilities loads d) Participating in Demand Response or Interruptible load programs
Verifying electricity bills has become more important in recent years in markets where the price of electricity changes hour to hour. There are now distribution, transmission, kWh, demand and other charges. It may also be important for you to be able to calculate how much your bill will be before you receive it. The LCA Energy Management System has the ability to duplicate a wide variety of bills by allowing customers to configure the individual tariffs. In addition the market price of electricity can be brought into the system so that it can be used as part of the bill calculations.
It may be important to have an energy management system that can handle Demand Response scenarios. Demand response is the ability to reduce your electrical load when the Utility Company or Electricity Market Operator requests that you reduce load to a contracted level. It is important that customers with these arrangements be able to automatically reduce their load within the allotted time frame, verify they are at the required level and then have the data to show compliance. The LCA Demand Response Software will also calculate revenue generated in each incident of Demand Response.
Access to comprehensive reports in also key when choosing Energy Management Software. You'll probably want multiple users to have access to the data over your WAN from a variety of locations. Ideally the system you choose should support individual users who are connected to the network and remote (from home) access via VPN if desired by some users.
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