13th September 2007
NOTTINGHAM CITY COUNCIL TAKES A SMART APPROACH TO METERING
Nottingham City Council has become the latest organisation to install smart metering to better manage its energy consumption. 250 smart meters have been installed by bglobal plc, the leading provider of smart metering solutions to the energy market, with a further 50 currently being fitted.
Every school under Nottingham City Council's authority will use the meters, which on average can lead to savings of £300 to £400 a year each. The new meters, expected to be in place by the end of year, will now be installed in all other major buildings and sites owned and managed by the council.
During a review in 2005, the Council's own climate change review panel, set-up to check how 'green' the authority was, said it had failed to tackle key issues - such as producing a detailed masterplan on how it will tackle climate change. One area identified was energy use. The authority was frustrated with the lack of control over power usage across its buildings, and also the inaccuracy of 'guesstimated' energy bills.
In essence, bglobal's smart meter system continuously records the amount of energy being used on a half-hourly basis. This information is remotely retrieved by bglobal using the GSM/GPRS network. bglobal provides Nottingham City Council with regular reports, enabling the city council's energy manager to track peaks and troughs and pinpoint times when savings can be made.
Ken Stone, energy manager at Nottingham City Council said that the council had already been able to identify energy usage trends and expected savings of five to ten per cent a year once all the machines had been installed as well as helping reduce its carbon footprint.
Ken added: "We are now able to track trends and spikes in our energy consumption and react to them accordingly. We recently noticed that one of our sites had begun using an above average amount of electricity out of hours. We were able to investigate this and found that the caretaker was on holiday and no one was turning the lights off at night. We were able to soon rectify this and prevent further wasted energy and cost."
Peter Kennedy, CEO at bglobal said: "We have been working for more than four years alongside organisations such as The Carbon Trust to establish a model for smart meters in the UK and around the World.
"As well as Nottingham City Council, we have also been working with companies such as Vodafone and the electrical retailer Comet which cut its energy consumption by 14% over the past four years.
"We believe this is the way forward for both homes and businesses alike. Studies indicate that providing users with information about their energy expenditure not only helps them understand where it is being spent, but also encourages them to use energy more cleverly."
bglobal offers a unique end-to-end fully accredited smart metering solution with DC/DA and MOP accreditation, by manufacturing, installing, reading and operating smart meters.
NOTTINGHAM CITY COUNCIL TAKES A SMART APPROACH TO METERING
Nottingham City Council has become the latest organisation to install smart metering to better manage its energy consumption. 250 smart meters have been installed by bglobal plc, the leading provider of smart metering solutions to the energy market, with a further 50 currently being fitted.
Every school under Nottingham City Council's authority will use the meters, which on average can lead to savings of £300 to £400 a year each. The new meters, expected to be in place by the end of year, will now be installed in all other major buildings and sites owned and managed by the council.
During a review in 2005, the Council's own climate change review panel, set-up to check how 'green' the authority was, said it had failed to tackle key issues - such as producing a detailed masterplan on how it will tackle climate change. One area identified was energy use. The authority was frustrated with the lack of control over power usage across its buildings, and also the inaccuracy of 'guesstimated' energy bills.
In essence, bglobal's smart meter system continuously records the amount of energy being used on a half-hourly basis. This information is remotely retrieved by bglobal using the GSM/GPRS network. bglobal provides Nottingham City Council with regular reports, enabling the city council's energy manager to track peaks and troughs and pinpoint times when savings can be made.
Ken Stone, energy manager at Nottingham City Council said that the council had already been able to identify energy usage trends and expected savings of five to ten per cent a year once all the machines had been installed as well as helping reduce its carbon footprint.
Ken added: "We are now able to track trends and spikes in our energy consumption and react to them accordingly. We recently noticed that one of our sites had begun using an above average amount of electricity out of hours. We were able to investigate this and found that the caretaker was on holiday and no one was turning the lights off at night. We were able to soon rectify this and prevent further wasted energy and cost."
Peter Kennedy, CEO at bglobal said: "We have been working for more than four years alongside organisations such as The Carbon Trust to establish a model for smart meters in the UK and around the World.
"As well as Nottingham City Council, we have also been working with companies such as Vodafone and the electrical retailer Comet which cut its energy consumption by 14% over the past four years.
"We believe this is the way forward for both homes and businesses alike. Studies indicate that providing users with information about their energy expenditure not only helps them understand where it is being spent, but also encourages them to use energy more cleverly."
bglobal offers a unique end-to-end fully accredited smart metering solution with DC/DA and MOP accreditation, by manufacturing, installing, reading and operating smart meters.