Monitoring household energy consumption made easy

GREEN Koncepts founder and CEO Kenneth Lee. Photo by Camille Anne M. Arcilla

Monitoring household energy consumption—be it electricity, water, or gas—is now as easy as checking one’s e-mail or Facebook account.

Green Koncepts, a company pioneering the use of cloud technology in energy management, introduced an intelligent solution for such consumption called “Energetix” during the Build Eco Xpo Asia 2014 held Sept. 1 at Sands Expo and Convention Center, Singapore.

“It’s the social media aspect of energy consumption,” Green Koncepts founder and CEO Kenneth Lee said. “They just simply log in to their user account like their Gmail or Facebook.”

Optimize energy efficiency

Through Energetix, users can easily optimize energy efficiency with its real-time energy data and reduce up to 30 percent in costs. It delivers energy visualization, big data analytics and intelligent controls through any web-enabled device.

Lee said clients do not have to install anything to check the cloud, as the platform has a website-like interface that can be accessed anywhere in the world as long as there is an Internet connection.

“They don’t have to worry about maintaining the system, buying the servers and upgrading. They simply use it [as it is],” he added.

Energetix can provide solutions not only for households, but also to property developers, building owners, urban planners and facility managers who would like to centrally monitor the electricity, water and gas usage of large-scale entities such as buildings, estates and cities.

The peer-to-peer benchmarks feature allows people to compare and share best practices on energy management. Through GPS, the location and type of house can also be published online.

Managing energy

“When you are at home, you are very conscious [with the consumption], but when you’re at the office, someone pays for it. So by visualizing this energy, you can actually help people understand what is going on,” Lee said. “If you can measure it, you can manage it.”

Developers can install the Koncepts Energy Management (KEM) platform in a nondestructive way; no need to shut down or destroy parts of the building.

“In order to operate these, you will need sensors. These sensors are managed by a gateway and it pushes this data to the cloud. This allows us to access the information to any browser,” Lee explained.

Three modules

Energetix may include three modules: the UtilityView, ChillerView and RightLUX.

The UtilityView is an automated module for capturing accurate readings from electricity and water meters, and submeters. This is highly recommended for landlords and tenants who want up-to-date information on their consumption and costs.

The RightLUX is a lighting control module that allows consumers to control internal and external or street lighting remotely from a single central location. It enables individuals to manage lighting by turning it on or off, or even scaling it from dim to bright.

Lee explained: “RightLUX have maintenance functions. Say the lightbulb blows up, the system will send an SMS to the owner. It will also tell you how long your lamp has been running so it could prompt your replacement schedule.”

The ChillerView, meanwhile, is an analytics and diagnostics module for chiller plants to optimize plant efficiency and reduce their energy costs.

Aside from the three, Energetix may have the VRSView, a refrigerant system energy dashboard, and the UrbanOS, a solution for estate and city energy management.

Innovation

Green Koncepts’ development in cloud energy management began in January 2011. The idea started when Lee thought of looking for a device that would tell him how much energy he is consuming at home.

Lee found out about WattsOn, a gadget that gave him a real-time view of the energy consumption, and realized how much money he had saved through monitoring. From there, he had innovated his own platform that would serve multiple-stake owners.

Green Koncepts has now installations in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and in the United States. “The Philippines is in our radar but probably in the second half of next year,” Lee said.