Energy Management Software (EMS) is a general term and category referring to a variety of energy-related software [1] applications which may provide utility bill tracking, real-time metering, building HVAC and lighting control systems, building simulation and modeling, carbon and sustainability reporting, IT equipment management, demand response, and/or energy audits. Managing energy can require a system of systems approach. [2]
Energy management software often provides tools for reducing energy costs and consumption for buildings, communities or industries. [3] EMS collects energy data and uses it for three main purposes: Reporting, Monitoring and Engagement. Reporting may include verification of energy data, benchmarking, and setting high-level energy use reduction targets. Monitoring may include trend analysis and tracking energy consumption to identify cost-saving opportunities. Engagement can mean real-time responses (automated or manual), or the initiation of a dialogue between occupants and building managers to promote energy conservation. One engagement method that has recently gained popularity is the real-time energy consumption display available in web applications or an onsite energy dashboard/display.
Energy Management Software collects historic and/or real-time interval data, with intervals varying from quarterly billing statements to minute-by-minute smart meter readings. In addition to energy consumption, an EMS collects data related to variables that impact energy consumption such as number of people in the building, outside temperature, number of produced units, and more. [4] The data are collected from interval meters, Building Automation Systems (BAS), directly from utilities, directly from sensors on electrical circuits, [5] or other sources. Past bills can be used to provide a comparison between pre- and post-EMS energy consumption.
Through Energy Data Analytics, EMS assists the users in the composition of mathematical formulas for analyzing, forecasting and tracking energy conservation measures to quantify the success of the measure, once implemented. Energy analytics [6] help energy managers combine across energy and non-energy data to create key performance indicators, calculate carbon footprint, greenhouse gas, renewable heat incentives and energy efficiency certifications to meet local climate change policies, directives, regulation and certifications. Energy analytics also include intelligent algorithms such as classification and machine learning to analyse the energy consumption of buildings and/or its equipment that build up a memory of energy use patterns, learn the good and bad energy consumption behaviours and notify in case of abnormal energy use.
Reporting tools are targeted at owners and executives who want to automate energy and emissions auditing. Cost and consumption data from a number of buildings can be aggregated or compared with the software, saving time relative to manual reporting. EMS offers more detailed energy information than utility billing can provide; another advantage is that outside factors affecting energy use, such as weather condition or building occupancy, can be accounted for as part of the reporting process. This information can be used to prioritize energy savings initiatives and balance energy savings against energy-related capital expenditures.
Bill verification can be used to compare metered consumption against billed consumption. Bill analysis can also demonstrate the impact of different energy costs, for example by comparing electrical demand charges to consumption costs.
Greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting can calculate direct or indirect GHG emissions, which may be used for internal reporting or enterprise carbon accounting.
Monitoring tools track and display real-time and historical data. Often, EMS includes various benchmarking tools, such as energy consumption per square foot, weather normalization or more advanced analysis using energy modelling algorithms to identify anomalous consumption. Seeing exactly when energy is used, combined with anomaly recognition, can allow Facility or Energy Managers to identify savings opportunities.
Initiatives such as demand shaving, replacement of malfunctioning equipment, retrofits of inefficient equipment, and removal of unnecessary loads can be discovered and coordinated using the EMS. For example, an unexpected energy spike at a specific time each day may indicate an improperly set or malfunctioning timer. These tools can also be used for Energy Monitoring and Targeting. EMS uses models to correct for variable factors such as weather when performing historical comparisons to verify the effect of conservation and efficiency initiatives.
EMS may offer alerts, via text or email messages, when consumption values exceed pre-defined thresholds based on consumption or cost. These thresholds may be set at absolute levels, or use an energy model to determine when consumption is abnormally high or low. More recently, smartphones and tablets are becoming mainstream platforms for EMS. [7] [8]
Engagement can refer to automated or manual responses to collected and analyzed energy data. Building control systems can respond as readily to energy fluctuation as a heating system can respond to temperature variation. Demand spikes can trigger equipment power-down processes, with or without human intervention. [9]
Another objective of Engagement is to connect occupants’ daily choices with building energy consumption. By displaying real-time consumption information, occupants see the immediate impact of their actions. The software can be used to promote energy conservation initiatives, offer advice to the occupants, or provide a forum for feedback on sustainability initiatives.
People-driven energy conservation programs, such as those sponsored by Energy Education, can be highly effective in reducing energy use and cost.
Letting occupants know their real-time consumption alone can be responsible for a 7% reduction in energy consumption. [10]
Automatic meter reading (AMR) is the technology of automatically collecting consumption, diagnostic, and status data from water meter or energy metering devices and transferring that data to a central database for billing, troubleshooting, and analyzing. This technology mainly saves utility providers the expense of periodic trips to each physical location to read a meter. Another advantage is that billing can be based on near real-time consumption rather than on estimates based on past or predicted consumption. This timely information coupled with analysis can help both utility providers and customers better control the use and production of electric energy, gas usage, or water consumption.
An energy management system (EMS) is a system of computer-aided tools used by operators of electric utility grids to monitor, control, and optimize the performance of the generation or transmission system. Also, it can be used in small scale systems like microgrids. As electric vehicle (EV) charging becomes more popular smaller residential devices that manage when a EV can charge based on the total load vs total capacity of an electrical service are becoming popular.
Systems management refers to enterprise-wide administration of distributed systems including computer systems. Systems management is strongly influenced by network management initiatives in telecommunications. The application performance management (APM) technologies are now a subset of Systems management. Maximum productivity can be achieved more efficiently through event correlation, system automation and predictive analysis which is now all part of APM.
Building automation(BAS), also known as building management system (BMS) or building energy management system (BEMS), is the automatic centralized control of a building's HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), electrical, lighting, shading, access control, security systems, and other interrelated systems. Some objectives of building automation are improved occupant comfort, efficient operation of building systems, reduction in energy consumption, reduced operating and maintaining costs and increased security.
A smart meter is an electronic device that records information—such as consumption of electric energy, voltage levels, current, and power factor—and communicates the information to the consumer and electricity suppliers. Such an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) differs from automatic meter reading (AMR) in that it enables two-way communication between the meter and the supplier.
Energy monitoring and targeting (M&T) is an energy efficiency technique based on the standard management axiom stating that “you cannot manage what you cannot measure”. M&T techniques provide energy managers with feedback on operating practices, results of energy management projects, and guidance on the level of energy use that is expected in a certain period. Importantly, they also give early warning of unexpected excess consumption caused by equipment malfunctions, operator error, unwanted user behaviours, lack of effective maintenance and the like.
Process analytical technology (PAT) has been defined by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a mechanism to design, analyze, and control pharmaceutical manufacturing processes through the measurement of critical process parameters (CPP) which affect the critical quality attributes (CQA).
Utility sub-metering is a system that allows a landlord, property management firm, condominium association, homeowners association, or other multi-tenant property to bill tenants for individual measured utility usage. The approach makes use of individual water meters, gas meters, or electricity meters.
An energy audit is an inspection survey and an analysis of energy flows for energy conservation in a building. It may include a process or system to reduce the amount of energy input into the system without negatively affecting the output. In commercial and industrial real estate, an energy audit is the first step in identifying opportunities to reduce energy expense and carbon footprint.
A smart grid is an electrical grid which includes a variety of operation and energy measures including:
GridPoint is an American clean technology company based in Reston, Virginia, that provides energy management and sustainability services to enterprises and government agencies, such as electric utilities.
Miscellaneous electric loads (MELs) in buildings are electric loads resulting from a multitude of devices (electronic and other) excluding main systems for space heating, cooling, water heating, or lighting. MELs are produced by hard-wired and “plug-in” electrical devices that draw power, including office equipment such as desktop computers and monitors, mobile electronics (laptops, tablets, mobile phones, and their charging units), printers, fans, task lighting, and home equipment such as home entertainment centers, kitchen electronics (microwaves, toaster ovens, cooking accessories), bath items (hair dryers, lighted mirrors, and electric hot tubs), and other devices such as security systems and ceiling fans. MELs are gaining greater importance in energy management as personal electronics proliferate and become standard across demographic groups. MELs demand has been rising as a percentage of total energy end-use and is expected to continue rising.
Open Systems International, Inc. (OSI) is an automation software company headquartered in Medina, Minnesota, with international offices in Canada, Colombia, Spain, India, Dubai, Australia, Singapore, and China. Founded in 1992, OSI is privately held and employee-owned. The company's systems are used for the real-time management and optimization of production, transport, and delivery networks for utilities in the electric, oil and gas, transportation, and water industries. The company's core real-time OT platform has been successfully implemented at more than 550 installations worldwide.
A home energy monitor is a device that provides information about a personal electrical energy usage to a consumer of electricity. Devices may display the amount of electricity used, plus the cost of energy used and estimates of greenhouse gas emissions. The purpose of such devices is to assist in the management of power consumption. Several initiatives has been launched to increase the usage of home energy monitors. Studies have shown a reduction of home energy when the devices are used.
Energy and facility management software is a term used to refer to an enterprise-wide platform for handling technical data related to buildings and stems from the merger of EMS, CAFM and EAS. As such it involves the gathering and processing or information that is required for maintaining acceptable indoor comfort level while minimizing energy use.
NABERS, the National Australian Built Environment Rating System, is an initiative by the government of Australia to measure and compare the environmental performance of Australian buildings and tenancies. There are NABERS rating tools for commercial office buildings to measure greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency, water efficiency, waste efficiency and indoor environment quality. There are also energy/greenhouse and water rating tools for hotels, shopping centres and data centres.
Electronic systems’ power consumption has been a real challenge for Hardware and Software designers as well as users especially in portable devices like cell phones and laptop computers. Power consumption also has been an issue for many industries that use computer systems heavily such as Internet service providers using servers or companies with many employees using computers and other computational devices. Many different approaches have been discovered by researchers to estimate power consumption efficiently. This survey paper focuses on the different methods where power consumption can be estimated or measured in real-time.
Verdigris Technologies (Verdigris) is an artificial intelligence technology start-up founded in 2011 by Mark Chung, Thomas Chung and Jonathan Chu. The company is headquartered in the NASA Ames Research Center located in Silicon Valley in California.
The Industrial Internet Consortium rebranded as the Industry IoT Consortium in August 2021. The Industry IoT Consortium is a program of the Object Management Group (OMG).
Demand controlled ventilation (DCV) is a feedback control method to maintain indoor air quality that automatically adjusts the ventilation rate provided to a space in response to changes in conditions such as occupant number or indoor pollutant concentration. The control strategy is mainly intended to reduce the energy use by heating, cooling, and ventilation systems compared to buildings that use open-loop controls with constant ventilation rates.
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