{"id":1985,"date":"2012-03-08T18:00:28","date_gmt":"2012-03-09T01:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oregonstate.edu\/sustainability\/blog\/?p=1985"},"modified":"2012-03-08T18:00:28","modified_gmt":"2012-03-09T01:00:28","slug":"osu-energy-meters-what-they-are-and-why-they-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/2012\/03\/08\/osu-energy-meters-what-they-are-and-why-they-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"OSU Energy Meters: What they are and why they matter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1986 aligncenter\" title=\"Into Center\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/files\/2012\/03\/Picture-024-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Into Center\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/p>\n<p>An important part of sustainability is understanding energy consumption.\u00a0 Therefore, OSU tracks monthly energy, water and steam usage on campus by reading and recording data from every meter in each building on campus.\u00a0 This monthly task takes many hours as campus has many buildings and each building can have several meters.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1989\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1989\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1989  \" title=\"Picture 012\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/files\/2012\/03\/Picture-012-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Steam meter in the INTO building.\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1989\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steam meter in the ILLC.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>During meter reading, data is input into a tablet PC, transferred to a computer in the sustainability office and compared to previous month\/year\u2019s entries.\u00a0 When an abnormal usage is found, a re-read of the meter is performed to determine if there was an input error or if the building is truly experiencing abnormal usage for that month.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1987\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1987\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1987 \" title=\"Digital Meter\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/files\/2012\/03\/Picture-037-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Digital Electricity Meter in Kerr.\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1987\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Digital Electricity Meter in Kerr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>While many meters on campus are digital, some meters are analog (\u201cold school\u201d) dial meters.\u00a0 Due to the nature of analog meters, they can be difficult to accurately read under certain circumstances making human error a likely possibility.\u00a0 If there was not an error in meter read, the building is further evaluated to determine causes of the change in usage.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1992\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1992\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1992 \" title=\"Analog\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/files\/2012\/03\/Picture-031-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Analog electricity meter. Digital meters are advantageous because they are more precise (easier to read).\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1992\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Analog electricity meter. Digital meters are advantageous because they are more precise--meaning that they are easier to read.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Due to the antiquated metering system, OSU is looking into other methods of reading and tracking meter data. Some possibilities of a new system would include tracking meter data remotely, via computer and possibly online. It would also allow the sustainability office to create a number of reports that would output thorough comparisons of energy use between buildings and over time with accuracy.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1990\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1990\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1990 \" title=\"Picture 015\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/files\/2012\/03\/Picture-015-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"Digital steam meter.\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1990\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Digital steam meter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u00a0Data would also be available to staff, faculty and students outside of the sustainability office. Most importantly we would be able to troubleshoot energy issues sooner and work better toward reducing energy consumption, saving OSU time and money.<\/p>\n<p>Even with such a high tech energy management system we must still remember that, ultimately, energy consumption is everyone\u2019s responsibility. Modifying human behavior is still the most important way to manage and decrease energy use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An important part of sustainability is understanding energy consumption.\u00a0 Therefore, OSU tracks monthly energy, water and steam usage on campus by reading and recording data from every meter in each building on campus.\u00a0 This monthly task takes many hours as campus has many buildings and each building can have several meters. During meter reading, data [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1292103],"tags":[356],"class_list":["post-1985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","tag-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}