Today, businesses are analyzed on the basis of their ability to drive profits and their commitment towards environment. Luckily, the reduction in energy consumption allows them to achieve both. Thus, they have started relying on IoT technologies more than ever before to achieve their energy efficiencies. There has been an increase in the use of IoT powered devices such as smart meters and smart energy grids to achieve these efficiencies. These technologies are driving the transformation in the following ways.

Energy Consumption Monitoring and Energy Productivity

Today, businesses use various types of energy-intensive devices for functioning, including various types of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. These systems are responsible for at least 40% of the total energy consumption. They run idle during various times of the day such as lunch or tea breaks, or shift changeover periods. Without efficient energy consumption tracking, these energy waste are difficult to detect. Many IoT powered energy monitoring/management solutions allow users to monitor the consumption and schedule their utilization accordingly. These systems also help turn air conditioning, heating, and lighting systems on/off in offices, classrooms, conference rooms, and other such areas, thereby making energy saving easy.

Process Re-Adjustments and Energy Saving

Today, utility companies are imposing stiff penalties on businesses using energy-intensive devices. These businesses are required to maintain a power factor of 0.95 or pay fines. To curb the utility of power, the utility companies are implementing various types of power tariffs such as high tariffs at peak hours and low tariffs at non-peak hours. With insights on power consumption patterns, energy-intensive businesses can easily adjust their processes so that they can perform their energy consuming tasks at non-peak hours. This allows them efficient cost reductions, without compromising on productivity.

Energy Demand Management

There has been an increase in a number of buildings using smart energy grids in recent years. These grids enable businesses to monitor and incurring heavy fines. their energy demand and manage their power usage effectively to avoid exceeding energy consumption limits,

Energy System Monitoring and Maintenance

IoT-driven smart monitoring systems are being efficiently utilized by various utility companies and multi-facility users to keep a track the overall performance and health of their energy systems, such as solar panels, wind turbines, or so on. These systems allow them to identify key performance issues, and perform maintenance before the condition worsens. For example, GE utilizes IoT sensors to monitor the performance of its equipment. These sensors along with Predix – GE’s IoT PaaS provide information on predictive maintenance and other performance issues. This enables GE to achieve operational efficiencies by scheduling system maintenance on time, and minimizing system down times.

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