Tailored energy dashboard on your iPad
Energy bill and carbon footprint are becoming increasingly important topics for commercial buildings. This trend started with large buildings but nowadays also small and medium size buildings occupants and owners are eager to reduce their energy bill and carbon footprint… and to show it to all their stakeholders.
Devices and solutions providers are developing new features and new offers to enable that efficient management of the various energies, so that facility managers both for new and existing buildings can contribute to a sustainable development: meters, wireless communication systems, etc.
But the most dramatic change will come from the way the occupant and facility manager interact with that energy management systems to make it an actual tool for them to make things happen, in his specific situation.
In other words, standard energy dashboards and reports implemented once and for all don’t meet the ever changing energy efficiency requirements!
That’s where the new IT technologies come into play and where consumer technologies join business technologies: iGoogle, smart phones and tablets such as iPAD.
Occupant's customized energy dashboard
Tomorrow the more advanced energy management systems will leverage those technologies and thus allow the occupant and the facility manager to tailor himself the energy dashboards to his very specific need:
- he will have access to an application store where he will be able to download the specific application widget, but only when he needs it: cost allocation, energy bill analysis…..
- in a few mouse clicks he will be able to set a new energy dashboard: display a specific usage meter because some specific issue triggers that need now
- he will easily select the energy dashboards he wants to display for exemple in his iGoogle page, along with his other key widgets
- each individual user will be able to have his specific energy dashboards: no need to navigate in a complex hierarchy designed to cover all users needs
But technology is nothing if the user is not proactive. Their challenge is to take the ownership of those possibilities and to adapt their energy dashboards to the changes in their organization, in the regulations, in their building processes, ….
Are buildings occupants and facility managers ready for that change?
Laurent Bloch
These energy management capabilities are already available from a number of software and services providers. The dashboard concept has obviously been around for awhile. Today, users can select from a host of different energy-related widgets, including the ability to track demand & consumption for one or multiple sites in real time, the ability to track utility costs and compare those costs to actual meter readings, carbon footprint tracking, load factor analysis, and numerous other capabilities. The idea of using any technology to create a custom dashboard, pulling from various sources of widgets, is the innovative concept in this post.
Dear Sir
I read with deep interest about this dashboard stuff.Can you tell how and where I can purchase one.
Thank you
Peter
Hi Peter,
We have developed a system that has been deployed in South Africa and the Middle East. We are getting incredible results from the monitoring. We have seen double digit % savings in energy spend in all our customers. Savings range from 14% to 35%.
Web-based, GSM meter updates every 60 seconds. Clients predominantly commercial, industrial hospitality.
I think that buildings occupants, facility managers and even home owners will sooner or later set up the energy dashboards. It is really a matter of time. Everyone realizing nowadays that to save an energy cost is more then a modern manner; It is a necessity…
It’s great to see these dashboard technologies being applied to ways that can help us manage power consumption, and I agree it’s the actions that people take when they see the information. Can they really reduce power usage over the long run with the new information?
The mission of energy management is to provide reliable and cost effective energy services and I think with dashboard technologies we will see more advance and improve management.
Configuring your own dashboard is definitely something very helpful and handy for companies. Even more when we take in consideration that in some european countries, managing energy consumption and carbon foot print (crc) is a must, and even punishable by law if not correctly done. So thumbs up for this.
I think that buildings occupants, facility managers and even home owners will sooner or later set up the energy dashboards. It is really a matter of time. Everyone realizing nowadays that to save an energy cost is more then a modern manner; It is a necessity…