Following Rishi Sunak’s budget announcement, we would like to show our clients how LoRaWAN can support a green economy with energy efficiency and decarbonising of buildings the focus of the Chancellor’s speech. See below how LoRaWAN sensors can help drive energy efficiency and their benefits for consumers, energy companies, public services and businesses.
Consumers and energy companies
Existing meters for gas, water and electricity can be fitted with pulse meter counter sensors without any wiring required. These will enable consumers to see exactly how much electricity, gas and water is being used and when. With this people can make informed choices about how to reduce their consumption.
This will also enable the end of estimated billing by energy companies without the customers or the companies needing to read the meter. This means that energy companies can know they have billed all their customers correctly removing the need to handle complaints from customers who have been overcharged through estimated billing. For customers this means they never need to worry about being overcharged on their bills and having to go through the time-consuming process of submitting a meter reading and getting their money back. The overall result would be improved customer service and business efficiencies for the energy companies.
Where meter sensors have been deployed on large sites, they have also enabled small leaks to be detected and fixed earlier saving money through losses. This would be beneficial for the energy companies both in terms of reducing losses and fixing earlier often reducing the repair time and costs.
Public buildings and businesses
In large buildings such as schools, hospitals and offices there are a variety of sensors which can be deployed to be integrated with the building management systems to reduce the energy consumption. As LoRaWAN sensors do not require wiring it makes them much cheaper to install.
The types of sensors which can help make building systems more energy efficient are:
External Temperature Probe – This can easily be fitted to the outside of the hot water tank and the pipework throughout the water system, even at the end of line as there are no wiring requirements. This enables constant temperature monitoring and they can be integrated with your heating system to automate the heating of water. This means the water can be automatically kept at a high enough temperature to prevent legionella without heating the water unnecessarily. This automation can reduce the energy consumption of your hot water system.
Temperature, Humidity and Lux Level Sensor – In this one sensor you can monitor temperature, humidity and light levels and they can easily be attached to a wall in any room and start monitoring these levels. This makes them ideal for any building whether it is classrooms in schools, wards in a hospital or offices. The monitoring of light levels mean you can monitor your usage of lights against the light level of the room to ensue you are only using artificial lighting when they are needed, reducing your electricity usage. Again, if it is appropriate for your building this could be automated so that the lights come on when the light level in the room drops to a set level and turn off when it goes above that level.
Monitoring the temperature of rooms allows for more efficient use of heating systems by only turning them on when the room temperature drops to a particular level and turn them off if the room temperature increases to a set level. This can also be managed on a room by room basis. To maximise the efficiency of the heating system this can be integrated with your building management system so that this is automated.
As well as providing energy efficiency benefits it also means you can manage the environment of the room to be comfortable for patients, students and workers, particularly when combined with humidity levels. Humidity levels can be used to manage ventilation of the room and can also be integrated with the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. For hospitals this can improve patient comfort and for schools and offices this can improve focus and productivity.
If you would like to know more about using LoRaWAN sensors to support energy efficiency in your organisation please call 01208 811277 or email office@verfacil.co.uk