‘Smart’ Meters Help Track Electricity Use on Campus in Real Time

By Christopher James

      Over the past year, NYU has installed a “smart” electric meter in the majority of its buildings in order to directly monitor electrical use. This advanced electric meter identifies consumption in more detail than a conventional one, allowing for it to poll and record data from a building every 15 minutes in the form of kilowatts and kilowatt hours.
      The real-time electricity use data allows NYU to investigate energy demand at a given point in time, or historically over a period of time, enabling specific adjustments to be made in building operations that reduce the amount of electricity being used—which saves money and lowers greenhouse gas emissions.
      Ken Higgens, an NYU facility manager, used the data from the smart meters in Furman Hall to shut down certain building equipment between midnight and 5 a.m., which had previously been left on 24 hours a day.
      Working with NYU’s Sustainability Office, Higgens devised a schedule of planned equipment shutdowns. The goal was to compare smart meter data from the new shutdown periods to previous practice. Higgens was able to show exactly how much energy and money would be saved per year by not running this equipment for five hours every night while still maintaining building comfort quality. The end result is a $7,000 annual savings.
      Smart meters have even played a key role in NYUnplugged, the campus wide residence hall energy-saving challenge, which runs throughout the month of April. In the competition, residence halls try to achieve the greatest reduction in electricity use, and this measuring is made more efficient than ever by smart electric meters. The winning hall gets prizes and a “party in the dark” at the end of the semester. Last year’s champion was Greenwich Hall with a 24 percent electricity reduction.
      Soon, the real-time smart meter data will be available online to all members of the NYUnplugged challenge and to those in the local NYU community who would like to check their building’s energy usage. For more information, visit the NYUnplugged Web site at www.nyu.edu/sustainability/campus.projects/unplugged.html.