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Investing in smart meters can bring significant
compliance and cost benefits

INTRODUCTION

Most large industrial sites are fitted with half-hourly metering for electricity supplies, but not many have daily metering for gas and water supplies.

Whilst fiscal meters provide useful data at site level, they are of little benefit in diagnosing exactly how and where energy or water is being used (be it at plant, process or building level) and whether this is being done efficiently. Furthermore, if accurate information is available immediately (for example next day), recent experience has shown that it can be used to make additional savings as a result of reacting quickly to wasteful practices or control problems.

CHTA members with Climate Change Agreements are probably aware that HMRC inspectors could visit their sites at any time and ask them to justify their 80% CCL discount on eligible processes and/or to check that the basis used for claiming the discount is indeed still valid. In many cases, this could be seven years after the original application was made!

These compliance and cost drivers cannot be addressed with fiscal metering on its own. More accurate sub-metering is required to apportion the consumptions or costs between eligible and non-eligible processes. Simply installing manually-read sub-meters has been shown to be very cumbersome and error-prone, unless significant investment is also made in, say, a BEMS system or SCADA system.

WHAT ARE SMART METERS?

As a result of groundbreaking technological solutions, such as SMS text messaging via the mobile phone network, smart sub-meters, which can be read remotely, quickly and reliably, can now be fitted. Called AMRs or smart meters, these provide:

• accurate meter reads;
• automatic consumption profiles (half-hourly or hourly for electricity, gas and water);
• data day +1 via an internet tool, quickly and efficiently.

This means that, for the first time, it is possible to provide an end-to-end 'Automated Meter Reading' (AMR) solution plus data retrieval service across several meters on a site or across the UK.

THE BUSINESS CASE FOR SMART METERS

As a Management Tool, enables a site to:

• apportion costs to cost centres accurately, rather than estimated;
• improve forecasting and setting of energy and water budgets;
• calculate and check compliance with eligibility criteria for CCA;
• increase visibility of actual costs - added incentive to reduce and control costs.

As a Diagnostic Tool, enables a site to:

• know in more detail when and how energy and water are being used;
• identify and monitor exceptional usage patterns;
• benchmark energy consumption between processes or buildings;
• evaluate the effectiveness of cost-reduction measures and provide feedback - an important aspect of encouraging and confirming best practices.

ON-LINE DATA MANAGEMENT TOOL

Using an on-line management and diagnostic tool such as INSIGHT, available from CMR Consultants, the smart-meter readings can be linked into an online M&T (metering and targeting) system to highlight opportunities for savings, typically between 10% and 30%. Key features are:

• Internet browser-based - available 24/7 to all stakeholders;
• secure on-line storage of utilities data for six years;
• data immediately available for energy procurement;
• powerful analysis tools - benchmarking, M&T;
• ability to access customised reports;
• budgeting capability;
• exceptional alarms.

COST OPTIONS

Both purchase and rental options are available from various vendors:

Purchase

Typically, electricity smart meters start at around £400 and those for gas and water can be purchased at around £600 each, including installation. In addition there is an annual data management fee which varies between £100 and £150 per meter depending on the service provision. For example, data can be provided day +1 or weekly for an hourly profile.

Rental

A 5-year or 10-year rental option is available for the same electricity, gas and water smart meters where the service provision is exactly the same except that the initial cost is lower; typically around £20-25 per month for each utility, inclusive of the annual data management cost.

SMART METER CASE STUDY

The accompanying illustration shows the hourly gas consumption recorded by a gas smart meter for a site in the Midlands. The occupancy hours are weekdays 8am to 8pm and weekends 9am to 4pm. Until the gas smart meter was installed, the site was not aware that gas was being used outside normal working hours or indeed there was a control problem!!

The overspend equated to 48% of the site gas costs. Suffice to say, the problem was immediately rectified!! An alarm facility has been set up via the online management tool to guard against any repeat failure of the control system.