Similar to tracking a vehicle's miles per gallon fuel consumption rate, monitoring whole-building power or energy usage over time can deliver many insights into a facility's performance, including providing an early alert to developing problems and performance changes.
Whole-building data can be collected for any utility service (electricity, natural gas, water, central steam, etc.), and can be utilized through data analysis in a variety of ways, including:
- Finding opportunities for achieving energy savings.
- Helping verify the effectiveness of implemented energy efficiency measures.
- Benchmarking a building for comparison to other buildings of similar type.
- Sizing renewable energy systems.
- Exploring the potential of demand response or load shifting strategies.
A new 30-page best practices guide from Onset, The Facility Manager's Guide to Data Logging, discusses monitoring strategies and techniques that can be utilized to help shops reduce energy use and optimize performance of their facilities. The guide covers measurement approaches for a variety of building systems, including lighting, HVAC, indoor air quality and plug loads, in addition to methods for quantifying savings.
Onset is the world's leading supplier of data loggers.
A free copy of the guide can be downloaded at www.onsetcomp.com/FMG.
