In today’s competitive business environment, finding the best energy management systems is essential to minimize operation costs and maximize profits. Energy management reduces energy costs for different businesses and even homes. With a whole host of a lot of energy management solutions, it can be challenging to choose the correct one that meets the needs of your business. However, the following tips will simplify your search process and help you choose the right solution.
Know your requirements
It is important to understand the energy flows that you want to monitor so that you can know the type of solution to use. Do you want to record data on power consumption only or you also want to monitor the use of thermal fuel? Do you want to monitor specific circuits and areas? Do you want your solution to integrate existing monitoring systems? These are a few questions that you need to find answers before choosing an energy monitoring solution.
Do not choose monitoring only
The solution you choose should be able to offer more services than just monitoring energy. You need to get energy data daily, weekly and annually. Does the energy monitoring solution offer cloud-based solutions that you can access from any device? Does your solution offer customer support and consultation services? Can the energy management solution identify significant consumers of energy and discover opportunities for saving energy on your behalf?
Your solution should match your expertise
When choosing energy management systems, it is important to understand who will be using the solution. You need to know whether you are looking to build a complete energy management system that controls all your appliances and equipment or just some of the high energy consumers. These solutions can be over-specified, sometimes complex and very expensive for most people to use. You may consider a solution that is intuitive to use and allows energy monitoring in areas you want. Such a solution can be affordable for most people.
Remember to label the circuits before installation
You should ensure that all your energy flows to be monitored are labelled correctly before any work begins. This is very important as it ensures that data for particular areas and circuits are reliable.
Know your installation requirements
You need to ask the supplier if there will be any business disruption during the installation. If there will be any business interruptions, you need to plan in advance so that you don’t run into loses. Make sure your installation is done by a certified installer.
Engage with the solution
The level of user engagement with your energy monitoring solution determines the success of most energy management solutions. Will the users have enough time to use the energy management solution? Will the users understand the data provided or will they need professional support? Will the users be aware and capable of findings power savings?
The best energy management systems will help you save time by providing only relevant information to the users. Not all users are experts to understand the data provided.
