Striving for Cost-effective Energy Information Solutions: Emerging Web-based Technologies Provide Hope!

摘要

The internet is providing a cost-effective method of providing energy users with valuable information that enables them to better control their energy usage. The days of relying solely on systems that are on-site to provide this information have passed. The ability of off-site energy managers to collect, process, and disseminate this information using internet based e-mail and web pages accessible by the end user's standard internet browser has become a much more attractive option. While centrally monitored energy management is not new, it has been used primarily by high-end users with dedicated staff to perform the gathering and analysis functions. With low-cost internet communications available, this service can now be provided to a much broader market. This market, consisting of K-12 school corporations, municipalities, medium-sized commercial office buildings, and modest-sized retail chains has been under-served by the energy management community, except in regions with high-cost energy rates. While energy retrofit activities have provided a significant amount of energy savings to much of this market, there are more savings to be had in the operational and system maintenance areas. The only information that many of these under-served markets have is monthly energy bills. They are generally used for billing only, though some energy cost savings can be achieved by analyzing them for mistakes or for rate change recommendations. When one tries to detect the cause of excess energy usage using monthly bills, inadequate results often happen because these bills are time-late and lack energy usage profile information needed to identify the cause of excess energy usage. This article provides information regarding the information systems necessary to manage a facility's energy usage. It demonstrates the need for better, near real-time energy usage information for energy engineers and facility managers. In providing useful, timely energy usage information, the energy engineer and facility manager are better able to manage the energy usage in the facilities.