IMPORTANT - Alerts about excessive power and water usage is valuable information about the risks of damage to plant and premises.
A period of increased electricity usage can be the result of hardware equipment drawing power incorrectly.
Time to call the engineer to service the expensive plant?
Equally important is information that excessive water is being consumed, not all water leaks are visible but water damage to buildings is expensive to repair
How are Utilities Alarms set-up?
AMR data from the last 24 hours is checked for alarm activation events
When an alarm activates two events are scheduled.
1. The location status changes from Green to Amber / Red 2. Email is sent to stake-holders such as FM company, maintenance staff etc. Emails are optional and can be restricted to level RED alarms
The time of the alarm data review can be edited in Carbon Counter GUI. Many users opt to receive alarms from all locations at a fixed time early / mid-morning so that essential maintenance activities can be organised. Hopefully, locating and fixing the electric or water incident the same day.
% Increase Alarm
% Increase in usage week to date | This alarm to is monitoring rolling weekly usage changes in electric, gas and water used. The base level is always 15 to 8 days previous : this allows for natural increases in usage.
Example : Burring of gas / electric for heating during the late autumn.
Reading Never Below
Most locations have steady baseload usage for electricity and ideally periods of zero usage for gas and water.
Whenever the AMR data reports that the baseload / baseflow / nightline is higher than expected the alarm is activated.
The algorithm is that the incoming automated meter readings with the timestamp 01:00 to 05:00 are checked. If none of the 15 (or 30) minute periods have usage below the alarm levels, either an amber or red status alarm is set and emails sent.
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Reading always above
This alarm is activated when the kWh usage or water flow in litres / second is above the alarm threshold for 120 consecutive minutes. The alarm threshold should be set above the usual usage patterns for the building.
When this alarm activates for electric / gas it is a call to action to find the reason for a persistent increase in carbon emissions. The CO₂e emissions footprint for water is lower but large water leaks (possibly unseen) damages buildings, with associated repair costs.