Energy performance is an important aspect of running a business. Most businesses are looking to reduce their energy consumption, because growing utility costs mean improving efficiency can also improve your bottom line. At the same time, there is an increasing pressure for businesses to lower their carbon emissions to help protect the planet from worsening climate change. These factors mean that optimizing energy efficiency has essentially become a business necessity.
Implementing an energy efficiency strategy involves a variety of different factors, from updating outdated equipment like LED lights and high-performance HVACs, to adding renewable energy sources like solar power. But one of the most important parts of optimizing your business’s energy performance is energy monitoring software. Energy monitoring software helps ensure that any energy efficiency improvements you make at your business locations continue to deliver positive outcomes for your business and the planet. Plus, this software makes understanding and optimizing your business’s energy performance a lot simpler. When you work with an energy management partner like Budderfly, you get every aspect of energy efficiency taken care of, from equipment upgrades to monitoring software, renewables, and more. In this blog post, we’ll explain why commercial energy monitoring software is so important and what you can expect from industry-leading energy technology.
What is energy monitoring software?
Energy monitoring software is a type of technology that keeps track of how a business’s energy is being consumed and provides deep insights and features that help streamline business operations. This type of software can have a lot of different uses that aid energy efficiency, from providing real-time alerts about equipment performance, allowing for simplified online utility bill payment, aiding ESG reporting on lowering carbon emissions, and a lot more. Typically, the insights and information provided from the software are available in an online customer portal that can be accessed from a computer or smart phone.
By utilizing energy monitoring software, energy performance becomes demystified and reducing consumption becomes a lot simpler. Plus, this software provides increased transparency by allowing businesses to measure the impact of their energy efficiency measures.
Energy monitoring software features
- Energy performance data: Energy consumption monitoring software tracks usage at each piece of equipment for deep insights and understanding of operations. In your customer portal, you should be able to see how much of your energy consumption comes from lighting, HVAC, or refrigeration and at what times of the day the most energy is being used. This can help identify opportunities for continued optimization. The software can also show you how much your energy usage is decreasing from prior months, and how much your energy efficiency initiatives are making an impact and lowering carbon emissions.
- Real-time alerts: Industry-leading energy monitoring software typically comes with real-time alerts to help businesses prevent equipment issues. By tracking how much energy certain pieces of equipment use, the software can detect when there are potential problems. For example, if a refrigerator suddenly starts using a lot more energy than usual, it could likely be that the door has been left open. When the software detects this energy spike, it can send a notification to a business owner or manager who can check the equipment and avoid a costly disaster such as, in this example, food inventory spoilage. The software aids preventative maintenance by sending alerts about other unusual activities or usage spikes that may require technical support to avoid equipment breakages and other issues.
- Control equipment schedules: Energy monitoring software allows businesses to set up schedules for equipment based around what hours the business operates. This helps ensure that energy isn’t used and wasted after closing time. It also allows you to control your thermostat remotely, changing or scheduling certain temperatures as needed.
- Pay utility bills: Paying utility bills can be a nuisance, but energy monitoring software often comes with the ability to let you see your energy bills in your customer portal and to make easy monthly payments online. Plus, with all the insights and data provided about your energy usage, you’ll feel better understanding exactly how you have used energy and why things might be fluctuating from month to month.
WATCH: The Budderfly Customer Portal
Benefits of using a commercial energy monitoring software
- Cost-savings: Energy monitoring software can help businesses save money by using their energy more efficiently, optimizing equipment usage to maintain ideal temperatures and environments while eliminating energy waste. It provides further financial benefits by sending out proactive alerts of potential issues before they become disastrous, averting money wasted from ruined inventory or needing to close because an HVAC stopped working suddenly.
- Real-time data availability: The data from this software gives business owners a clearer understanding of how their energy consumption is performing and keeps a log of what peaks are normal, which ones are not, and which could be due to an error, such as lighting being left on after hours. The average utility bill doesn’t provide this level of insights and prevents many businesses from having full comprehension of their operations. With energy monitoring software, business owners get a wealth of useful data and can access most of this information remotely at any time in their customer portal.
- ESG compliance: By measuring energy consumption and showing how much emissions are being reduced, this technology makes it much easier for businesses to demonstrate how they are helping the environment and working towards any ESG goals they may have.
- Measurable results: If you have upgraded your equipment to more efficient models and implemented other sustainability practices, it would be frustrating to not be able to understand the results. Energy monitoring allows businesses to see if they are reaching their energy-saving goals, from consumption levels to cost reductions, and to identify when there is opportunity for further improvement.
Energy monitoring software is a crucial piece of energy efficiency for businesses, and it is one of the many advantages of working with an energy management partner like Budderfly. Our energy monitoring software comes with all these benefits and more, and our Customer Portal helps our partners understand just how much we’re helping them lower their energy consumption.
To learn more about how Budderfly provides energy efficient equipment upgrades, solar power, water conservation tools, and energy monitoring software for businesses—all with no upfront costs—contact us today.