Priva brings aM&T to the masses
If you have a building-management system to control energy-using plant and systems in your building, it is very unlikely that you also have an automatic monitoring and targeting (aM&T) to analyse energy usage in detail and target future energy-consumption patterns. Anders Norén, managing director of Priva Building Intelligence, suggests that only 2 to 3% of buildings in the UK with a BMS also have aM&T capability.
Part of the reason for the small proportion of buildings with a BMS not also having aM&T is the expense of installing a separate energy-monitoring system or complex interface.
That problem has been addressed by Priva’s TC Energy web-based program for monitoring energy and producing reports that enable a building manager to instantly view information about energy use in a single building or across multiple sites. Suddenly, aM&T has become available to the masses.
Raw data is transformed by TC Energy into graphically illustrated easy-to-understand reports in a range of formats — helping managers improve building performance and identify areas and hot spots where energy could be saved or managed more efficiently.
Crucially, there are no capital or upfront costs with TC Energy, merely a low annual subscription. A Priva controller is needed to communicate with TC Energy, but one could be added to an existing BMS that already collects data from meters.
Priva uses dedicated and secure data centres with password encryption, so all information is fully protected and accessible.
Anders Norén comments, ‘TC Energy takes energy monitoring from being a “nice to have” to being a “must to have”. It’s no longer just large companies with upfront capital that can benefit from energy monitoring. Now organisations large and small can benefit from an energy-monitoring tool that is affordable, convenient and easy to use. We believe it can empower companies to reduce their carbon impact and make important savings on day-to-day running costs.’
