<p>"Electricity cost pinches me. I want to take some actions to both reduce my bill as well as contribute to a sustainable future. But I am mostly busy with my daily responsibilities. When I sit down to think of what I can do for energy efficiency, all I have with me are monthly bills which don't give me sufficient information on what information should I take."<br><br>As a facility head or the CFO of an organization, do you feel the same? Another common experience across all our customers has been that there are many energy efficiency or service companies that would offer wide range of energy efficiency products/services - ranging from installation of rooftop solar to replacing your LED lights or even replacing your inefficient Air Conditioning Equipment with more efficient equipment. Taking these decisions are often difficult due to high upfront investment in terms of either capital or infrastructure (in the form of giving your rooftop for solar installation) or both.<br><br>What if I say that you have many micro power plants operating within your building? These micro power plants are the inefficient operations that go unnoticed because the "Big Daddy" is not watching. These are the hidden treasures of energy from your own building that come in the form of simple actions collectively resulting in more than 10% energy savings. What if you use the power of two of the latest technology trends - "Internet of Things" and "Big Data Analytics" to unearth these hidden energy treasures and that too at possibly no upfront investment?<br><br>This is where advanced energy data analytics can help you. A smart meter at any load level (e.g. UPS, or Chillers or Air Handling Units) can both measure and communicate the power consumption in real time. Add to this power consumption information, real time data from other sensors that matter (e.g. fuel level sensor in Diesel Tank or temperature sensors in occupied areas) and you have the ingredients to be ready to unearth the micro power plants in your building. So the first thing you need is to equip your facility with such "Internet of Things" in terms of smart energy meters and other relevant sensors and collect all this "Big Data" in a managed cloud platform (to ensure robust data collection at all times without any hassles).<br><br>This data is of little use unless experts analyze it to derive "actionable insights". These insights should also be delivered to you when it matters i.e. let you know that AC is running in night time when it should not be running or what is the right time to turn on air conditioning in the morning to pre-cool the building at the right temperature by the time office begins.<br><br>Some of you may already have an extensive (and expensive) "Building Management System (BMS)" already installed in your facility that is collecting all the Air Conditioning and energy data. How many times though has someone looked at the data? The real potential of a BMS is exploited when the collected data is analyzed to decide on the appropriate set points (e.g. what is the right setting for "Leaving Water Temperature" of your Chiller?) so as to result in energy efficient operations.<br><br>Some of you may also have already invested into a sustainable building by going for green building certifications such as LEED or GRIHA. However, while such buildings are designed with energy efficiency in mind, they may not be operating in the most efficient manner. This is similar to buying a 5-star AC but possibly running it at the set point of 180C thus leading to very high energy consumption.<br><br>An end to end solution from sensing systems for data collection to data management and analytics to delivering actions (either in the form of SMS/Email notifications or as automated control) will help in identifying the micro power plants within your facility and putting them to good use by eliminating the operational wastage. Recently, some startups have emerged that offer such end to end solution and that too with zero upfront investment model. It then is a no brainer - try them out. If you don't save more than what you are paying them, stop their solution.<br><br><em>The author, Amarjeet Singh, is founder of Zenatix and Prof at IIIT Delhi</em><br><br><em>LinkedIn</em><strong>:</strong> http://bit.ly/1KFPvfv</p>
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