Onset Monitors Track Usage, Spot Inefficiencies
You can’t effectively manage the energy usage of your data center or office unless you can tell how much you’re using and how. Energy monitors can help. By monitoring your facility’s energy consumption at different times of the day and in different parts of the building or data center, you can begin to see where the wasted energy is going, start to cut back usage, and automate more of the controls, including reducing cooling in the data center during off hours when less heat is generated.

That’s the value proposition behind environmental- and energy-monitoring products currently on the market, many of which also provide weather monitoring, data logging and transmission, and reporting features. One such product is Onset Computer’s HOBO U30 Remote Monitoring System (www.onsetcomp.com). The U30 keeps track of such factors as temperature, humidity, kilowatts used, DC current, AC current, and voltages. A key feature of the product is that the data it collects can be transmitted to Onset’s HOBOlink Web-based reporting tool so a customer can check devices remotely and view the data they collect.

Tracking Energy Reduction

Energy-monitoring devices such as Onset’s are quickly finding their way into all sorts of facilities for tasks such as reducing overall consumption, testing the effectiveness of a specific energy-efficiency project, or finding out what parts of the building or times of the day generate the greatest demand.

MCD Inc., a Wisconsin-based specialty print-finishing company (www.mcd.net), is using Onset’s U30 monitors to track the printing plant’s electricity use, with the goal of better managing peak energy demand. MCD and its energy consultant, Informing Ecological Design, are looking at ways to reduce MCD’s peak power draw to save money in both energy costs and punitive charges that utilities often levy on peak demand usage.

Another energy consultant, Leo Cutone, president and founder of Cutone & Company (www.cutone.org), relies heavily on the Onset U30 power monitors to track energy consumption for his clients, which are mostly office and residential buildings, universities, and hospitals.

The majority of his customers are organizations that have signed up to participate in the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority Demand Response Program, which rewards businesses that cut back on electrical consumption during times of peak demand to prevent brownouts and blackouts. Some also participate in smaller energy-reduction programs, which typically provide grant money and bonuses for implementing a specific energy-efficiency practice, such as better insulation or high-efficiency air conditioners. In either scenario, Cutone’s job is to collect the data as proof that the customer has in fact reduced consumption and qualifies for the incentive.

For many of Cutone’s clients, these monetary incentives are considered important revenue streams, so the reliability and accessibility of the monitoring devices takes on extra importance.

“Some of our customers can get back as much as $200,000 a month, so it’s like their cash register, and they expect that revenue,” Cutone says. “If the meter were to go down for some reason, they’d risk losing that money.”

Web-Based Collection & Reporting

Cutone likes the U30 monitoring products because they are supported by Onset’s Web-based data collection and reporting tool, which takes the data from the remote monitors and saves it for him to access or download later. That lets him remotely check on the monitors and run reports when he needs them. The U30 also comes in versions that support different communications channels, including Ethernet, cellular, and Wi-Fi. Cutone says he was attracted to Onset partially because of its support for cellular service, which the product he had been using did not support.

Before moving to the U30 cellular model, Cutone was using a product that supported only a network or landline connection. However, using a customer’s intranet didn’t work well as the network administrators often routinely killed the process, assuming it was a rogue program or virus. His other option, a regular landline connection, was prone to being physically disconnected by an employee simply pulling out the jack or being virtually yanked by the phone company.

“When I ran it through the customer’s intranet, the IT department would see it on their network, not know what it was, and disconnect it. It happened all the time,” he explains. “Or [the phone company] would disconnect it because it looked like some weird device on their network, too. Then I would lose money and so would the client.”

Cutone has had no problems with Onset’s cellular version. While cell connections often aren’t ideal for data transfers, the Onset monitor sends only small packets of text, so a slow connection isn’t usually a problem.

Fine-Tuning A Green Machine

Onset’s energy loggers can also be used to monitor entire facilities. That’s the case with Mind, Body & Spirits restaurant in Rochester, Mich. The restaurant, which opened last year, was built with all of the latest in environmentally efficient technologies, including solar power collectors, an energy-recovery ventilation system, geothermal heating and cooling, and the use of outdoor air to chill the food coolers during the winter. Timers are set to turn the heating and AC on and off at certain times of the day, adjust the temperature in the coolers, and keep the onsite greenhouse from getting too cold.

Mind, Body & Spirits uses several Onset environmental and power-consumption monitors to efficiently manage all of these energy sources and automated switches. Knowing when and where energy is needed is key to keeping things running smoothly, says owner Mike Plesz.

“It’s like timing a car engine,” Plesz says. “The data logging [from the Onset U30] helps by showing us the spikes and valleys in usage and temperature. It allows us to do forecasting throughout the year.”

There are about 15 individual monitors around the restaurant, including a weather monitor and a CO² monitor in addition to the energy monitors. All of them send data to the Onset HOBOlink Web site, where Plesz can view it from a Web browser. The data gives him an understanding of what parts of the restaurant need more energy than others; where lighting or heating can be cut back to save money; and even whether something odd has occurred during the night, such as the cleaning staff forgetting to turn off the lights.

One of Plesz’s first discoveries was that the cleaners had the habit of turning on all of the lights in the restaurant while cleaning. That showed up as a spike in the data, and Plesz has since asked the cleaners to be more conservative with the lighting. “We’re educating them about conserving energy,” he says.

Plesz’s expectation is that the data he collects will be useful not only now in saving on current energy costs, but down the road when he builds more restaurants or does consulting for others.

“We have to be able to see everything that’s going on,” he says. “It provides information for the investments we’ll be making in the future.”

by Sue Hildreth

Onset Computer HOBO U30 Remote Monitoring Systems

A remote data logging and monitoring device with built-in communications, including cellular, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or USB, that provide real-time access to environmental and energy data. The monitors can transmit data to the HOBOlink Web-enabled software hosted by Onset. The U30 is also available as a standalone unit that logs data and lets users collect data directly from the unit.

“It’s like timing a car engine,” says Mike Plesz, owner of Mind, Body & Spirits. “The data logging [from the Onset U30] helps by showing us the spikes and valleys in usage and temperature. It allows us to do forecasting throughout the year.”

(800) 564-4377
www.onset.com