Businesses are currently facing pressure to become more sustainable and limit their energy wastage in order to reduce their energy costs and reach their net-zero targets. According to local.gov.uk, councils collectively spend over £680 million each year on their energy. Energy costs for businesses are continuing to increase due to a combination of volatile market conditions and inefficient buildings, stretching budgets even further.
Some businesses have started to focus on short-term quick wins to help them reduce their energy consumption, such as, switching to LED lighting, adding lighting sensors, reducing heating temperatures and making staff aware of the importance of saving energy. However, there are also other ways that businesses can reduce their carbon footprint and manage their energy more efficiently, through our ‘Smart Spaces’ alarming system.
What is Smart Spaces and how does it work?
Smart Spaces is a powerful energy management tool that uses Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) data to alert site contacts when potential energy wastage is identified. This enables businesses to take effective action on energy waste. It is designed to assist Energy Managers with multi-site portfolios, as the intuitive software sends an email to the designated on-site contact, meaning that they don’t have to be at the specific location to make a difference.
Benefits of Smart Spaces
Our Smart Spaces AMR alarming system can help businesses to:
- Reduce energy costs – By having access to real-time energy data and being notified of any potential energy wastage, businesses can take action immediately, saving them money.
- Get automatic alerts to on-site contacts – Alerts can ensure that action can be taken, even if the Energy Manager is not on-site.
- Improve the lifespan of equipment – By identifying and correcting any overuse of heating and lighting systems can help to increase the lifespan of the equipment.
Wider Impacts of Smart Spaces
Many organisations are feeling the pressure to be more sustainable from their stakeholders and customers, with Social Value becoming an increasingly important topic. Having positive sustainability credentials can set businesses apart from their competition. One recent example of this comes from the education sector, where according to the student’s sustainability and study choices report when applying for their chosen university, sustainability was noted as being more important than the location for prospective students when deciding where to study.
How Smart Spaces has helped Network Rail to become more efficient
Network Rail has over 8,000 sites, and due to the complexity of different energy users and locations, they needed a system that would help enable them to track and monitor their energy data across their whole portfolio. Network Rail needed to be able to monitor each supply and build a more complex alarm for different users.
Using Smart Spaces has enabled us to set up multiple site alarms with no work involved on our behalf, saving us a lot of time. The alarm was set daily and would notify us if any heating was left on across the tracks, meaning we could turn it off when we next visited. This has saved us around £40,000 over the last two years. Smart Spaces also helped us to identify our zero-consuming sites which have now been disconnected, saving us the cost of paying the standing charges for meters we no longer use.
Clare Rich, Asset Engineer Energy & Carbon
Network Rail
Get in touch with our experts
To find out how your business can benefit from our Smart Spaces AMR technology to help reduce your energy costs and consumption arrange a demo, or speak to one of our experts to find out more on 01234 988855.
