The benefits of implementing a smart metering system are often seen immediately after, and sometimes during, system installation. Emasys’s goal is to provide customers with all the benefits of our smart metering solution for managing energy and water consumption, the fastest possible return on investment and further financial savings. Therefore, below are the most common irregularities in energy and water management that are visible shortly after using the system for the first time.

Does the fire hydrant network have water?

Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? However, once, during installation, we requested that the client allows water to flow through the hydrant so we could ensure that the pulse reader installed on the hydrant water meter works properly and registers consumption. When the client opened the hydrant’s valve there was no water. In fact, there was no water in the entire fire hydrant network due to a closed valve. The said valve was opened immediately thus avoiding a possible disaster in an emergency.

Early consumption monitoring

After the system has been installed and consumption monitored for a week or two, the user can start establishing what normal energy and water consumption looks like and notice any excessive consumption. Detailed data on energy and water consumption from the smart metering system at intervals of one hour (or less) provide insight into consumption patterns that would not otherwise be possible to see.

For example, a user may notice that a misconfigured or faulty heating and cooling system heats or cools an empty building overnight and at weekends when there are no users in the building. Furthermore, comparing thermal energy (heat) used with outdoor temperatures can be useful. Often buildings are heated even when it is warm outside (Figure 1).

In the following example, the user noticed excessive water consumption at the facility at night (140 – 200 liters of water per hour) and searched for any leaks. Once the problems were found and fixed, the water consumed daily was almost halved (Figure 2).

Let's do the maths…
Price of 1m3 of water = 3,30 EUR
Daily water loss = 2m3
Annual cash savings = 2.409,00 EUR

Further reading

Here are a couple more case studies to see for yourself the benefits of a smart metering system:

A Christmas gift of 150 EUR per day!

Two weeks to save 11m3 of water a day!