Commercial and industrial buildings in the United States consume a tremendous amount of electrical energy each year. Approximately 30% of all energy consumed by these buildings and facilities is wasted equating to $120 billion in waste.
One of the biggest challenges facing building owners is understanding how energy is used in their facilities as most owner only have access to their monthly bill from the utility provider. This data only provides owners with one big picture, which, while helpful, does not provide the level detail required to efficiently manager energy usage within a facility.
Commercial buildings use electrical energy in many ways:
- Indoor and outdoor lighting
- Heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC)
- Elevators, escalators and other moving conveyances
- Appliances and other plug load types (computers, printers, and other business equipment)
- Hot water heating
- Other process or miscellaneous loads, such as kitchen and laundry facilities
Understanding how these building systems use energy and how they interact from an energy perspective is extremely valuable information. More importantly, understanding where in the facility and when these systems use energy is critical to managing energy costs.
