Education/Campus

Why Submeter Educational Facilities & Campuses?

With today's schools and universities facing mounting financial pressure, controlling the bottom line is key to maintaining current programs and keeping education affordable. However, in spite of tightening budgets, energy conservation and cost reduction are realistic goals that any district or educational facility can achieve using checkmetering and submetering products.

Designed to install easily in new or retrofit applications, cost-effective checkmeters and submeters are ideal for departmental budget allocation, identifying peak energy inefficiencies, common area lighting and event metering. Student housing is a prime candidate for submeters. Submetering dorm rooms, suites or buildings allow billing according to actual usage. Installing green class meters in public areas allow students to immediately see the impact of their conservation efforts.

Other applications on campus include coffee shops, food service, bookstores and various retail spaces that use energy at different rates. Submeters are ideal for monitoring and generating accurate and fair energy statements based on individual use. Key equipment can also be metered to profile energy use, allowing facility engineers to reduce downtime by diagnosing costly failures before they happen. In addition, analysis of energy load trends highlight opportunities to shift energy loads to off-peak hours or stagger loads to reduce costly demand charges.

Applications

Student Housing & Dormitory Monitoring
Students use energy. Those held accountable for what they use will use less. This is the premise for metering energy consumption in student housing and dormitories. Campuses install submeters on individual spaces and generate usage statements for each student. Because they are responsible for the energy they actually use, students will be more inclined to take energy-saving measures such as closing windows to keep heat or air conditioning from running or turning off lights and other electronic items when no one is there.

Departmental Allocation
Chemistry, Accounting, Mathematics and Engineering are just a few of the departments that have classrooms and administration offices with budget accountability. Metering each department allows users to take advantage of energy-saving opportunities which may be as simple as turning off lights or computers when rooms are not in use. When department budgets include energy use, users will be inclined to take the necessary steps to ease the pressure on their budgets by reducing overall energy use.

Leased Spaces
Restaurants, retail stores and cafeterias all play an important role in campus life. These leased spaces use energy at different rates. Campuses are now able to install submeters to monitor each individual leased space and generate energy statements based on their individual energy use. This increases tenant satisfaction because they know that they are only accountable for the energy they use, while the campus benefits from recovering all tenant energy costs. Campuses also install submeters on common areas, allowing them to more effectively manage common area costs.

Event Allocation

Sporting events, concerts and festivals all require large amounts of energy. Campuses use submeters to monitor usage of parking and stadium lighting, sound systems and vendors for accurate allocation of energy costs back to the event sponsors. Campuses generate accurate energy usage statements for individual events avoiding costly estimation errors and ensuring that all event energy costs are recovered.

Equipment Maintenance

As the cost of education increases and budgets more constrained, it is more important than ever to avoid costly equipment replacement. Submeters can be installed on key pieces of equipment to identify potential equipment failures. This allows facility managers to take steps to schedule repairs before equipment fails, thus avoiding costly and unexplained downtimes.