Smart Power Monitoring for Small Business

[KristyJ]

Hi all,

I'm not sure if I am posting in the correct area, so apologies in advance. I am looking for advice or recommendations around smart energy monitoring and control systems for a small- medium sized school in Victoria, Australia. Something that will offer both data monitoring but also control of our systems including appliances, lighting and power. Has anyone had experience with or knowledge of reputable companies in our area please? Many thanks.

[Joel_Weder]

Hi Kristy,

Building power monitoring is not something that the Remote Operations team gets involved in. I'm not sure who to suggest. If anyone else who reads this has a suggestion e.g. @BevanWeiss please feel free to comment.

[BevanWeiss]

Thanks for the referal @Joel_Weder 

My employer (Alliance Automation, https://allianceautomation.com.au/) can provide these kind of services.  And we do have an office (my office) in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia... so pretty local.

You'd likely find better value going for an integrated Building Management System, rather than an Industrial Automation system.

Unfortunately the prices for this equipment is still quite expensive if you go for name brand items (like Siemens / Schneider (Clipsal/PDL) etc).

https://www.siemens.com/global/en/products/buildings/desigo-building-automation/building-management....

https://www.se.com/au/en/product-category/1200-building-management/

There's a whole bunch of options out there for more bespoke solutions... you can even jam things together with AliExpress hardware and a Raspberry PI with open source software... but things like legislative compliance, overall system support and system spares / maintenance will quickly become a factor.

If there's already some existing BMS installation (perhaps for time of day light control) then leveraging that and building up the same system is probably your best bet.

[LaxieD09]

That's a fantastic local lead for anyone in Victoria!

Since the goal is a complete system (monitoring and control), the advice to look into an integrated Building Management System (BMS) rather than just industrial automation is spot-on. It handles the whole building environment much cleaner.