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Understanding a building’s energy use is more than just good business sense – under a number of jurisdictions around the globe, it’s becoming the law. From the European Union to Japan, India and some U.S. states, regulations are going into place that are intended to reduce building-related emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. These new rules require building owners to become more aware of the energy performance of their buildings’ heating, cooling, lighting and other systems. As I describe in this post, these rules are driving growing demand for Power Metering and monitoring Devices (PMDs) complying with the International Electrotechnical Commission’s Standard IEC 61557-12, as specifiers seek solutions for meeting these rules.
European Union requirements
Two directives developed by the European Union (EU) are among the farthest-reaching, internationally. The European Union’s 2006 Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) and 2012 Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), are now the law across most of Europe and the United Kingdom. The latter is especially comprehensive, with a set of binding measures to ensure EU member states use energy more efficiently throughout the value chain, from production to final consumption. Metering equipment can monitor consumption and help facilities establish both baselines and targets under continuous improvement projects.
Both directives can be mapped to standards that address methodologies for conducting audits, and installing monitoring and measuring systems. Under the EED, for example, companies must either perform facility-wide energy audits on a regular basis or set up an energy-management plan, as shown in Figure 1. Organizations maintaining such an energy-management system are exempt from annual audit requirements because, in essence, such benchmarking is built into their regular business processes.
Other regions have their own requirements. These include the U.S. state of California, where the California Energy Commission’s recently enacted revisions to its Title 24 energy-efficiency standard – now require building owners to separately meter lighting, air conditioning and other building energy demands. PMDs complying with IEC 61557-12 can help meet this requirement.
Guiding standards for a number of other regions are outlined in Table 1.
| Green Building Certification | Influence |
| LEED EB O&M | USA |
| Title 24 | USA, California |
| BREEAM-In-Use | UK |
| NF HQE Exploitation | France |
| CASBEE | Japan |
| DNGB for Existing Building | Germany |
| IGTC, GRIHA | India |
Table 1 – Green Building certification
ISO 50001 (and its related set of standards as stated in Table 2) remains one of the most used standards to improve the Energy Efficiency of plants.
| APPLICATION ASSESSMENT STANDARDS OR RULES | METHODS STANDARDS | PRODUCT STANDARDS |
|
Energy Management Systems – Requirements with guidance for use |
Energy Baseline (EnBs) & Energy Performance Indicators (EnPIs) Low voltage installations – Part 8-1: Energy Efficiency EN 17267 Energy measurement and monitoring plan – Design and implementation – Principles for energy data collection EN 50600-2-2 Information technology – Data center facilities and infrastructures – Part 2-2: Power distribution |
Power Meters Power Metering and Monitoring devices (PMD) See related posts: |
|
Gateways, energy servers, data loggers IEC 62974-1 Monitoring and measuring systems used for data collection, gathering and analysis – Part 1: Device requirements |
Table 2 – ISO 50001 related set of standards, as defined in IEC TR 63213
This set of standards can also be represented according to the design and operation phases, as shown in Figure 2.
If you are looking for more details, you can check out the following documents:
| Theme | Type | Link |
| IEC TR 63213 | Post | IEC TR 63213: a Guide to Measuring applications on the supply and demand side |
| ISO 50001 ed 1 | White Paper | Recommendations for ISO 50001 compliance |
| White Paper | Supplement Document to ISO50001 White Paper: Recommendations for Compliance | |
| ISO 5001 ed 2 | Post | ISO 50001 Edition 2 Delivers More Clarity for Effective Energy Management |
| IEC 60364-8-1 | Post | IEC 60364-8-1 : Setting a New Standard for Efficient Buildings |
| EN 17267 | Post | Understanding the EN 17267 Standard That Helps You to make a “Planning to Energy Data Collection” as requested by ISO 50001 |
| EN 15232 | Post | CO2 Reduction and Energy Performance – Setting the Standard for Building Automation with EN 15232 |
| IEC 62974-1 | Post | Get the most of from your Energy Data with the IEC 62974-1 Standard and Ecostruxure Power |
New options make metering easier
PMDs offer many advantages beyond power monitoring. They also can provide information on voltage, harmonics frequency – all critical factors in optimizing equipment efficiency and performance – along with remote load management. These functions are all accessible via dedicated touchscreen displays or via web browsers. Plus, in many cases, the panels’ integrated communications interfaces are ready to connect to existing energy-management platforms.
To learn more about Schneider Electric Smart Panels, please click here. Also, be sure to register for our Consulting Engineer portal for free access to additional tools, resources, and product information.
