Energy Conservation Measures (ECMs) are a combination of initiatives undertaken to reduce energy consumption across an entire facility or building. Energy is a term that broadly refers to either electricity, gas or water consumption; energy conservation and energy efficiency are often interchangeable terms as improved energy efficiency also means reduced energy consumption.
Detect simulates energy conservation measures and recommendations to help energy consumers save money by lowering energy consumption costs. Besides this, installing ECMs also comes with additional benefits such as reducing air pollution, providing better indoor conditions, and reducing the impact of fluctuations in the electrical market for the consumer.
Based on inputs such as historical consumption data, energy prices, geographic location and estimations related to the efficiency status, Detect’s recommendations module applies a list of simulated energy efficiency recommendations for each building to identify additional opportunities to reduce energy costs and increase efficiency. Detect provides 4 different types of recommendations:
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Virtual audit retrofits that require investment and could be related to different types of consumption:
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Type of saving |
Description |
|
General / Main-supply |
These measures target consumptions that are not from a typology use per se but a general use. For example: Install solar panels, avoid stand-by consumption, use Optimise |
|
Power supply / Billing |
These measures are targeting economic savings through the utility’s power supply contract. For example: Power optimisation and reactive compensation. |
|
Lighting |
These measures target savings in a sub-consumption specifically; lighting. These measures can refer to a change in technology, habits or management. For example: LED replacement. |
|
HVAC (Heating Ventilation Air-Conditioning) |
These measures are targeting savings in a sub-consumption specifically; HVAC. These measures can refer to a change in technology, habits or management. For example, building envelope measures. |
Every recommendation is applied taking into account the expected savings and costs (CAPEX, OPEX) based on the surface, volume and any other metadata available for a building. In addition to the technical details for the implementation of each recommendation, the system calculates 5 different financial metrics (Savings, ROI, Payback rate, Net Present Value, and Internal Return Rate) so the end-user can decide which recommendations are worth implementing.
- Complementary retrofits, that explain the benefits of investing in an energy efficiency measure and are directly linked to virtual audit retrofits.
- Behaviour analysis, provides energy behaviour insights about the way a building is consuming energy and how it can be improved, for example detecting if your consumption is on expensive periods.
- Standard tips to become more efficient. For example: Set point adjustment, indoor air quality, electric vehicles.
Detect recommendations are simulated for the whole account. Every month, all recommendations providing savings to the customer will be shown in the user interface. Green checks display recommendations from the report, mostly prioritised by energy savings and those recommendations that are financially positive.
Example of recommendations selected for a month on the report
Example of Virtual audit recommendations in DEXMA Detect user interface
Example of the details for a virtual audit recommendation in DEXMA Detect user interface
To learn about the detail of each recommendation, you can check the following article.