Research from EnergySage shows that consumer electric bills have risen sharply over the past decade. The good news is that new advances in technology can help mitigate many of these rising costs.
Big data has helped consumers take the edge off of rising costs. However, both consumers and utilities need to know how to utilize it properly.
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The State of Big Data in Energy Cost Management
SpringerOpen has talked about the growing relevance of big data analytics in the energy sector. Utility companies are relying more extensively on big data to optimize services and offer them cost-effectively.
Consumer energy users often find it is a lot easier to manage their energy consumption, as it’s much easier to control gas and electricity usage. However, businesses will face numerous challenges when reducing power consumption. This is because some will have hundreds or even thousands of employees all tapping into the same energy source. Fortunately, data analytics can help assuage their concerns and better regulate costs.
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To help your company ensure that it isn’t using more power than it needs, we’ve created this basic guide to help you better understand energy management. One of the most effective ways of saving money on commercial gas and electricity is to switch to a cheaper business energy supplier. You can easily compare commercial gas and electricity providers at Utility Saving Expert, it takes less than 10 minutes to obtain a free no-obligation quote, allowing you to filter deals by price, tariff type and contract length.
What is energy management analytics?
Energy management takes advantage of modern technology to increase energy performance in the workplace. For a long time, businesses across the UK have overpaid for commercial energy, this is only made worse by not implementing the relevant energy management processes. Fortunately, this doesn’t have to be the case with a robust management system in place, helping firms reduce their monthly or quarterly bills and follow new regulations in regards to their environmental responsibilities.
To achieve this, companies will need to create an energy management strategy. This will outline the steps it will take to reduce overall carbon emissions that pollute the Earth’s atmosphere. Here’s how your business can reduce gas, electricity and water usage among other utilities:
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Create a clear strategy
To begin with, you’ll need to set out a clear strategy if you hope to have a successful energy management scheme. This document will highlight how your firm will approach this subject. A range of tasks will need to be considered that look at the current operational framework. One of the key focuses of this strategy should be how to comply with climate change and energy legislation requirements.
Metering, monitoring and targeting
Metering, monitoring and targeting (MM&T) is one of the most important aspects of a robust energy management system. This will help your business to ensure that realistic targets are set based on data from actual usage. This helps you identify opportunities to save energy by completing energy surveys and analysing data through metering, monitoring and targeting. Here are the core elements involved:
- Data recording
- Data analysis
- Setting a target and benchmark
- Monitoring results
- Creating reports
- Taking action through controlling
Consult senior management
Similar to any business activity, you will need to get leadership and key decision makers on board. This will help you smoothly implement these processes. If company leadership shares the same vision for the business energy management project, the whole workforce will rally behind this push.
Here’s how you can make the above happen:
- Identify which senior member would be able to push the project through
- Discuss the benefits an energy management project would have
- Use current business examples and emphasise the value it offers
- Ask them to commit by becoming the champion of the project
- Understand what steps must be taken to keep the project running
Small business owners won’t need to think about the above points as they can sign off on the project at any point. However, sharing a written declaration with staff will keep you and the team accountable.
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Create a business energy plan
All large companies should have an existing energy policy. This is a written statement which details how your business will tackle energy efficiency. It will include how you procure goods and services. Here are the key points that should be included:
- Who is accountable for the energy policy?
- What energy targets have been set for your business?
- How will you monitor and review progress?
- What HR and training will be needed to achieve this?
- How energy management will be rolled out to the whole business
- Economic investment criteria and if energy efficiency will be integrated into current investments
Regular reviews
Creating this scheme is a great starting point but this doesn’t mean the task has been accomplished. As with any business operation, things won’t go smoothly from the offset, this is where regular reviews will need to take place. Carrying out a regular review will help you better understand how you’re progressing and keep you on track towards the goals you have set. Smaller firms can carry out reviews less frequently, however larger businesses will need to make these happen more frequently. A quarterly review will likely be the best practical way to ensure things are going as planned, allowing you to make any necessary changes if needed.
Data Analytics is Central to Energy Management
In conclusion, the data obtained from a meticulously planned energy management system can inform key business decisions, helping you save money by becoming energy efficient and adhere to climate change legislation, paving the way for a cleaner and more sustainable future.