Reducing energy consumption is a lot like losing weight. You need to have a firm goal in mind; implement an active energy reduction plan and constantly monitor and report energy consumption to ensure you are on track. If you jump on the scales on New years Day and weigh yourself and set a goal to lose 10kgs and then don’t weigh yourself again until the next New Years Day there is a fair chance you will have put on 10kgs rather than lose it.
An important part of making an Environmental Sustainability Plan work is to effectively monitor its ongoing impact and success. This means actual ongoing consumption needs to be compared to the projected energy profile on a regular basis. This may be monthly, weekly or even daily depending on how important it is to meet the projected profile.
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If you have a number of tenancies in the building that are dependent on achieving and maintaining a certain NABERS Star Rating you don’t want to wait until the end of a 12 month operating period to discover your rating is at risk. You need to know something has happened that is adversely impacting energy consumption in a timely manner so it can be fixed before your target energy consumption is at risk.
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On going energy monitoring and reporting can be a very simple process of manually collecting consumption data from utility bills and comparing it too projected consumption from the profile or it can be fully automated using a range of sub-meters feeding data back to an energy management suite. This information is then available real time and in a number of informative reporting formats.
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Case Study - Energy Monitoring & Reporting
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A large organisation in Perth has discovered this the hard way. Their head office was designed for and successfully achieved a NABERS 4 Star Energy Rating in the first year of operation. However, energy consumption was only measured once a year when the NABERS Rating was updated annually. The Rating has consequently slipped marginally over the past 3 years of operation to the point where the building is in danger of losing its 4 Star Rating and the operating costs are unnecessarily high. A proactive energy monitoring and reporting system will help them get back on track and consistently meet the organisation’s sustainability commitments and operating budget.
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