Over the last few years, there has been a huge pressure to reduce the energy use intensity of new and renovated buildings, where an increasingly better building envelope in terms of thermoinsulating properties is being imposed by normative requirements. However, each coin has two sides and this case is no different. Insulated buildings with well-sealing windows have stopped breathing naturally, which can have a very negative effect on human health. The situation is even worse in areas with an increased concentration of people, such as schools.

„Smart City“, currently a very popular term, encompasses in itself many meanings. Generally speaking, the term refers to application of modern technologies to operation of towns and cities. Modern technologies can be applied within many sectors, including transportation, power engineering, waste treatment, lighting, medical care, etc. – all these can be improved by modern technologies.

The aim of such solutions (putting aside political and business-related objectives) is creating a city which is comfortable to live in and cheaper to maintain. At least these should be the reasons why politicians get involved in the introduction of Smart City projects in their towns, cities or regions. Our company focuses on intelligent energy monitoring using the Enectiva application.

Are you wondering how can energy (including water consumption) be easily monitored? Here are several tips on efficient energy monitoring and on approaches and processes that are applied in the development of Enectiva – a complete tool for on-line energy monitoring.

Rules of energy monitoring

A simple and comprehensible energy monitoring means more users will understand it and be able to use it, which consequently means more people will be motivated to save energy and reduce consumption. It is a mistake to see energy monitoring as a highly technical discipline intended only for corporate power engineers. Energy management, as well as monitoring which is related to it, are closely connected to economics. The makers of systems of energy monitoring should keep this in mind – the monitoring systems should be comprehensible even to people engaged in financial matters. Moreover, if the system is kept simple and easy to understand, costs of training of new users are significantly reduced. The rule of thumb is that a good system of energy monitoring should serve the needs of the user, not the other way around as we often see in corporate ERP information systems.

Firms are taking a fresh look at the benefits of ISO 50001 nowdays and Enectiva as the system of energy monitoring and reporting makes implementation of this norm much easier. Enectiva has been, from the very beginning, developed in accordance with the ISO 50001 requirements. Without even predicting the current situation, we adopted ISO 50001 as a standard of the Enectiva management tool. Enectiva is able to cover all the requirements of the ISO 50001 norm in terms of monitoring, reporting, metering & verification, monitoring and targeting. Using Enectiva, you can easily handle and simplify the implementation of the ISO 50001 standard as well as all the necessary administration.

The results we present here are based on data gathered by the Enectiva team from 400 administration buildings located in various Czech cities of over 10.000 residents.

We are looking for partners, if you are interested contact us at partners@enectiva.com.

Consumption of Electric Energy

For 50% of administrative buildings, electricity consumption per 1 m² of used floor area varies from 50,1 to 142,7 kWh/ m². According to energy consumption, we are the most active at work on Tuesdays and then Mondays. Starting with Wednesday, our activity only decreases until the end of the week. The difference between Tuesdays and Fridays (the day we work the least according to consumption data) is 6,01 % in average. This difference is larger in open-space offices than in offices smaller than 200 m² – in this case, the difference is only 3,63 %. Over the weekend, the energy consumption of the average office decreases by 54,17 % compared to the consumption during working days.