Efficiency direct.
Management Control for Energy Budgeting and Forecasting

Efficiency Direct specialise in utility metering as a part of our “If you can measure it you can manage it” motto, including:

• Individual tenant billing within multi-tenanted sites
• Establishing the landlords energy usage and apportioning it back to tenants
• Cost centres within a large organisation to apportion running costs.
• Developing specific energy requirements for specific operations
• Verifying utility bills

These systems provide the data to allow us to provide our Monitoring and Targeting services (see Energy Reporting) for clients to suit their individual needs, these include sub/tenant metering and smart metering systems.

On some sites landlords include utility usage costs within the rent or lease but in multi-tenanted sites this is a very inaccurate way of apportioning usage as inevitably some tenants use more power than others.

Efficiency Direct operate several sub-metering and tenant billing systems, the largest example is a multi-tenanted 100,000 sq.ft complex with about 30 meters that:

• Replicate main tariff meters for bill verification
• measure the actual usage at each individual supply point/tenant
• generate monthly billing schedules for landlord charge-backs
• review usage patterns and report upon them

The site systems are remotely accessed by GSM or internet links to collect, collate the data and then to generate a billing schedule; this is usually a monthly service but can be bespoke to each application.

A Smart meter is:

• an advanced utility meter ideal for smaller sites just under the 100kW threshold for half-hourly meters
• can be extended beyond electricity to include gas and water
• it communicates its information via GSM technology
• a central server collects/collates the data for analysis and billing.

The benefits of AMR include:

• Accurate and timely billing.
• No more estimated bills.
• Operational / Consumption Savings
• Improved Budget and Accrual
• Energy Monitoring and targeting becomes a useful management tool.
• Information can be used to raise awareness amongst building occupants and to produce league tables etc.

Portable meters are very useful when you need to assess where and when your electricity is consumed, or to confirm that your existing meters are accurate They can also be very useful should you wish to quantify the effect of improvements to your important building systems. Efficiency Direct can help by quickly installing temporary meters to your equipment or supply. The meters we use are non-intrusive and usually do not require supplies to be interrupted to allow installation and later removal.

How they work?

Split Ring current transformers are installed without the need to disturb wiring. These measure current flow through single or three phase circuits and their output is fed into the portable metering equipment. This unit can then display current, voltage, kW, kWh and kVA/Power factor for each phase being monitored.

Up to three months data can be stored on the collection instrument and then uploaded to a PC where a specialist software package is then used to display collected information in graphical and tabular form.  Data can be exported to Microsoft Excel_© should the client require this.