Explained: Energy management

Energy-efficient buildings not only have a positive impact on the environment, but also on the building’s users. They also save the bill payer lots of money. With intelligent energy management, energy costs can be reduced by 10-30%, depending on factors such as the fabric and insulation quality of the building itself, for example.

But what does intelligent energy management actually mean and what steps can you take in your own building?

01 Monitoring
The first step is all about knowledge. Loxone Partners can integrate consumers in your building and set up graph visualisations to help you measure and analyse the energy demand of your building. Through these graph visualisations in the app, you will be able to paint a picture of what devices are using energy unexpectedly perhaps, or what is consuming a surprising amount of power in standby mode at times when it needn’t be on at all. From this, you are able to uncover where the energy-saving potentials in your building are.

02 Reducing your base power consumption
Step two focuses on reducing the base load. This is the energy that your building consumes as somewhat of a minimum draw. So analysing the graphs of usage setup in the first step, and identifying how much power is being used in between the peaks. These flatter indications of use could account for the majority of wasted power consumption – devices left on standby that have a constant consumption.  For example, in an office an elevator consumes 80W when it’s simply powered on waiting for someone to use it. Whereas at home, you might find the entertainment unit (with your TV, decoder, media players, etc) consuming 25W throughout the day in so-called standby mode when no one is at home.  Equipped with the information that Step 1 has helped you gather, your Loxone Partner can help you find ways to reduce this base load. Because every watt you save here will save you money –  approximately £2.80 per watt per year.

03 Shifting your peak energy consumption
Once you have reduced your base load, then you can work with your Loxone Partner to identify the most energy-efficient way to shift your peak energy consumption to times when energy is either free or cheaper. For example, you may have a variable electricity tariff or PV solar system? Your Loxone Partner can configure the system to know what the power demand is of the various consumers in your building, and work on a priority based on demand and time of day so that you can rest assured you’re using energy in the most efficient way throughout your building. Whether that is immersion heaters, appliances, charging your car, or topping up your battery storage. These peak demands are unavoidable but shifting them to alternative times can make a big impact on your environmental impact and your energy bill.

Individual energy management with Loxone

We know that every building is unique. That’s why we have Loxone Energy Heroes – a team of experts who are there to work alongside Loxone Partners to assist and advise homeowners and business owners on how to optimise their systems to get the greatest energy savings. Our heroes support you through each of the three steps to ensure you maximize energy savings and increase your building’s return on investment.

Our goal is to make energy management simple and efficient. So if you want to save money, increase your building’s sustainability and make a real difference, let’s take these three steps together. Ready to make a difference? Speak with your Loxone Partner, or use our Partner Search map to find your local installer to get started.