Energy management systems are designed to monitor and manage an organization’s sites, facilities and other remote electricity use to detect opportunities and inefficiencies for proper optimization. EMS also provide insights into energy efficiency, consumption and technology.
Components of a successful EMS
You might think that an EMS could be limited to software programs and in some cases, you could be right. But there are several functions that are essential to the success of building an insightful and practical system.
Analysis and monitoring
Any effective EMS should track, monitor and analyze the performance of electricity assets and the energy that facilities use. This includes actively monitoring your assets’ energy use. Part of this is being vigilant in using the available resources to find inefficiencies. You should establish performance thresholds to ensure these remote assets function as expected.
Management of resources
If you want to get the most from your energy monitoring systems, you need to be wary of your remote energy assets to keep your usage on track. You should manage these assets and the thresholds you establish will transform into live alerts.
By examining historical and live data from your tracked energy key performance indicators, your management system can help you predict when failures are imminent. This helps mitigate an extended outage. It can also help complete site downtime. You can detect where energy is being used immediately and needlessly to improve your efficiency by getting rid of these issues.
Energy efficiency
Energy management systems are useless if they can’t differentiate between return on investment and value. An EMS’ most critical component is its efficiency. It starts with optimizing energy usage to focus on minimizing unnecessary operations and renewables during idle periods. Energy efficiency directly affects your bottom line. It does this by reducing the overall energy costs. This in turn reduces your need for regular maintenance and improves durability.