It wasn’t very long ago that most building tenants enjoyed unlimited access to electricity, gas, and water and only had to worry about paying their rent. Inefficiencies and waste could not be easily identified, and there was little incentive for tenants to conserve. Property owners found a solution in submetering tenants’ utilities and billing them for what they consumed. Today, submetering has evolved well beyond its original purpose and is used within individual facilities at increasingly granular levels.
Nowadays, building managers use submetering for managing energy, identifying problem areas, and improving efficiency. They are often integrated into building automation systems, allowing for real-time automated control. Submeters are used for individual building systems and components like lighting, chillers, pumps, and air handlers to identify system and equipment abnormalities and operational inefficiencies. They can be used to measure domestic water, chilled water, steam, and compressed air. Cooling tower water is frequently metered to identify malfunctions and minimize overconsumption. On the process side, submeters are used to measure clean compressed air, nitrogen and various other specialty gases.
Proper calibration is important to ensure the accuracy of submeters, and there are various software and system choices available. Important features include the capability of collecting, storing and analyzing data from multiple meters and the ability to generate load profiles for each submeter. Many include cost comparison capabilities based on utility rate structures. Use of submeters also allow buildings to qualify for utility rate programs that require detailed, accurate data to in order to participate.
For more information on how your facility can benefit from submetering, please contact Omni at 908-412-7130.
About Omni
Omni Instrumentation & Electrical Services, Inc., located in New Jersey and Maryland, is a premier instrumentation and electrical contractor, providing superior total care solutions since 1986. Services include instrument installation, tubing installation, instrument calibration, control loop testing, startup and commissioning, power and lighting, process control wiring, BMS wiring, telecommunications and data wiring, fire alarm wiring, security wiring, process network wiring, and control panel fabrication. Omni Instrumentation & Electrical Services, Inc., is certified in Foundation Fieldbus, Profibus, DeviceNet and ASI-Bus installation.