Smart Metering and M&T
Measurement and Targeting (M&T) are the key to unlocking your organisation’s efficiency potential.
Smart meters are now so cheap that simply NOT having a smart meter is going to cost your organisation more. WM Energy works with the UK’s leading smart metering provider to offer you smart metering solutions for electricity, gas and water from as little as £50 a year per meter.
Smart metering will be compulsory by 2014, however by law, energy suppliers are only obliged to supply smart meters for new buildings until this time. Certain suppliers are not currently offering smart meters at all, the suppliers that are offering smart meters will recover their costs via a standing charge and higher kWh unit costs. Suppliers will then charge you for the provision of data and online reporting and will no doubt, lock you into a contract.
By using the WM Energy smart metering solution, not only does it incur the least cost, you have the advantage of being supplier independent, giving you the option to switch contracts, yet still have access to all of your data and reports.
What does a smart meter do?
Smart meters are normal meters with built in tele-communications devices. Using a SIM card and text messaging protocol, they text consumption data in half hourly increments to a data server, which in turn allows you to log in and monitor your consumption via a web console. You can also generate reports that show your historical data, what profile class of meter you should be on and your peak capacity to name but a few.
Why is this useful?
If you have non half hourly meters, smart metering enables you to ‘profile’ your organisations electricity, water and gas consumption. Ulimately, this profile can be used by electricty suppliers to offer a tailored and cheaper tariff based on when you consume your electricty in the same way as half hourly electricty. This benefit is currently not available for gas and water supplies.
Administration costs
Administration is the hidden cost of energy supply. Many multi site organisations spend hundreds of man hours a year processing non half hourly electricty and gas bills, correcting the difference between estimated and actual reads. By implementing a smart metering solution, there are no more meter readings or estimations to correct, as the data is sent daily to your energy supplier. This removes the margin for error and the administrative costs in correcting bills altogether.
With smart metering, you have the flexibility to switch supplier and still maintain all of your records and provide accurate meter reads during the cross over period.
Are smart meters useful in the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC)?
For Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) compliance, smart meters are one of the early action metrics that can see a refund in first year allowances of 10% – which is worth £1.20 per tCO2. Any organisation that is CRC-eligible should immediately install smart meters at all sites to gain this saving, all meters must be installed by March 2010 at the latest.
What is targeting?
William Martin Energy offers a unique Energy Consumption Troubleshooting service that can be used in conjunction with a Smart Metering solution. By looking at 48 data points over a 24 hour period, you can get a clear picture of your buildings consumption at any time of the day. Smart Meters can be installed as ’sub meters’ to monitor particular circuits or pieces of equipment.
By looking at these graphs, you might for the first time see that a particular site or piece of equipment is using an unusually large amount of energy after hours or at weekends, or you may see large unexplained spikes in your consumption. This information starts the investigative process, what equipment is causing this unnecessary usage? How can we solve the problem?
This is called ‘targeting’. It is universally agreed within the M&T industry that this simple process typically saves organisations 10% on their energy bills for little or no cost.
What size of business should install a smart meter?
The answer is ‘any’. Even if your combined energy, water and gas bill is less than £5000 per annum, smart metering will help you save money and budget for your utility costs more effectively.
Smart metering provides a win-win solution to a decades old problem at a price that makes its implementation a no-brainer.
William Martin Energy recommends that your organisation signs up for an Energy Efficiency Opportunity Survey which will advise you of the benefits that can be gained from Smart Metering. At a minimum allow William Martin Energy to establish the scope for better energy prices in your organisation by using our Online E-Auction energy procurment service.
Call William Martin Energy today to discuss how smart metering could work for your organisation.
For further information, call us on 0207 378 5800 or contact us by email.
