Malebo stared at the document on her screen and sighed. Energy consumption increased by 3.2% this month. How? Why? As the energy manager for a large private hospital group, she was frustrated with the lack of information she had at her disposal. What’s causing these spikes? Is this bill even correct? How would we know? “We need to get smart,” she told herself as she started typing out an email explaining the increase to her HOD, “and we need to get there fast.”
Detailed energy consumption reporting
Tracking of outages
Real-time cost analysis
Hospitals are large complex buildings that operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This means that they consume vast amounts of energy and water, with utility costs running in the millions.
The problem is that most hospitals, including the one Malebo works at, are unable to quantify their energy use. They simply do not have awareness of accurate consumption.
This hospital had to manually download the readings of each monitoring meter, then create an Excel spreadsheet and try to derive some sort of insight from the spreadsheet. They were completely in the dark when the facility was exceeding its peak demand and were unable to make informed decisions and forecast consumption, which negatively influenced their billing bracket.
What the hospital needed was more accessible and insightful energy data to get awareness of energy consumption across all levels in the company, from C-level executives requiring insights into ROI for future energy management programmes, to energy managers that need to improve their operational efficiency, to facility managers who maintain and manage the hospital equipment daily.
HYDRA was implemented within the hospital group, integrating with the existing smart meters to deliver real-time monitoring, analyses, insights and visualisation of energy data.
Solution implemented |
Outcome |
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Continuous real-time energy, power factor and load monitoring dashboard accessible on any smartphone, tablet or PC |
Real-time energy monitoring provides a holistic picture of energy consumption across all operational units. Areas and operations where consumption can be reduced are easily identified so costs are reduced by adjusting the schedule of specific operations and controlling consumption at peak times. The dashboard screen installed in the operational area means that all operational staff are aware of the energy consumption and are engaged in reducing consumption to meet sustainability goals. It’s then easier for the group to establish best practice methods to reduce consumption with the buy-in from staff. Power factor monitoring results in lower demand charges on the power system and reduced power losses which directly lowered electricity bills. Load monitoring ensures the balance of the three load phases in real-time which meant safety was increased and operating costs were lowered. |
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All historical readings and data accessible to users with insights, reporting and data export capability |
Historical data and insights enable the hospital executives and directors to understand top-level metrics and ROIs such as cost, overall energy consumption and how energy interventions have contributed to savings. Energy managers are also able to understand consumption per business unit in ranges they prefer as well as energy trends, spikes and other granular information they need. Advanced forecasting algorithms and the monitoring of the incoming transformer measurements over time provides the financial manager with real-time utilisation and predicts the estimates for the coming days within the month, which optimises their financial planning. Procurement gets the right information at the click of a button to compare the utilities bill received by the supplier to what was actually consumed. Specialists have access to data over an extended period which helps them understand and troubleshoot any problems that occur. |
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Integration and analysis of data from different sources into one view |
The hospital group can measure energy consumption in the following ways:
This enables the hospital to standardise consumption and discover which Energy Performance Indicators and/or Key Performance Indicators are important to the group. By integrating the hospital’s systems and information, together with the IoT /sensor data, the hospital creates benchmarks, such as energy efficient metrics per occupied bed and HVAC consumption, which are then incorporated into HYDRA, and in turn, improve ROI. Data from other energy sources, such as solar energy, is also integrated into HYDRA and then monitored and analysed to understand the impact. Facilities management is also improved with maintenance data being captured and analysed to prevent equipment failure before it occurs. |
You can’t improve what you can't measure and you can’t influence what you have no awareness of. With the right insights and awareness in a single, holistic view, the hospital group can now make informed decisions and can easily cut their energy bills by at least 5% to 15%. The next part of the project includes integrating water consumption. Getting to walk the digitisation process with an organisation that plays such a vital role in our society, especially with the Covid-19 pandemic, is why we do what we do.
This story is not unique to this hospital. Their challenges are experienced by almost all large, complex sites. We understand that every business operates differently. That’s why HYDRA is built with flexibility that allows us to tailor the solution to your business processes within days. Digitisation of your business can be up and running in less than a week. We walk the digitisation journey with you, ensuring your requirements, objectives and key results are met. With the power of HYDRA, we help you do what you do better, with maximum ROI and total awareness of your operations.
Access to education is one of our country’s greatest challenges. Schools are either inadequately equipped, overcrowded or simply don’t exist in some areas. The good news is that 4IR technology such as AI and IoT can change this.
Lethabo jolted awake in bed as his phone rang at 2:00 in the morning. As the senior maintenance and operations manager at one of the largest plants in South Africa, he was used to this. He spoke to the security manager on the line for a few minutes then started getting dressed. Cable theft.
Malebo stared at the document on her screen and sighed. Energy consumption increased by 3.2% this month. How? Why? As the energy manager for a large private hospital group, she was frustrated with the lack of information she had at her disposal.