Wireless utility monitoring

Wireless utility monitoring products from HWM’s Radio-Tech brand have been used by Verco Advisory Services to reduce a major UK food producer’s water consumption by almost 10% and gas consumption by over 5% in 5 months, with projections showing savings of around £1m in only 2 years.

When implementing sustainability improvements, companies need reliable, traceable data to target their efforts effectively and efficiently. It can, however, be difficult to rationalise the expenditure and disruption of installing such a system against results that may seem too speculative or distant. The speed of return on investment from wireless monitoring is substantially quicker than for hardwired systems, and the costs can be easily identified up front to ease and simplify the specification process: there are no potential wiring or access problems when the battery-powered devices can simply be fixed into place, meaning the most appropriate equipment within budget can be identified and used from the very beginning.

Verco, the energy management consultancy, has been working with its client for several years, focussing in 2012 on improving the company-wide sub-metering of resource consumption across its 15 UK sites. To do this, Verco has used Ecochirp transmitters and Wi5 data concentrators from HWM’s Radio-Tech range, which have been installed to enable rapid, centralised data collection from all areas of the business. The wireless devices were chosen largely because of their modular nature, integrating easily with the Carbon Desktop energy management system and requiring minimal ongoing maintenance and management. Easy to specify, install and expand, they have proven to be effective at providing a visible return on investment in the fastest possible timeframe.

Radio-Tech is one of the UK’s leading names in remote energy monitoring and smart metering products. The company’s small, battery-powered transmitters are coupled with their ‘Wi5 data concentrator’, which collects local readings wirelessly before sending all the information back via GPRS to the user’s choice of computer or server. For Verco, this approach has provided a quick return for evidence of real savings: a tangible reduction in consumption through targeted measures, significantly reduced spend on utilities and a more thorough and detailed picture of the company’s resource usage throughout its business operations and locations.