Energy monitoring systems can help GP practices drive down their energy consumption

Installing energy monitoring systems can certainly help the NHS in general and GP practices in particular lower their energy consumption levels by providing facilities managers with the tools they require in order to monitor how much energy their buildings are using at any given time, experts believe.

The regular monitoring of energy use will enable GP practices to observe and understand energy consumption throughout the building, and enable staff to better understand the impact that they can have in helping to improve energy efficiency. Monitoring on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis will enable the surgery to better understand its energy use profile — when peak energy use is occurring — and to identify any unexpected anomalies, such as out of hours energy use.

This is a good way to identify issues that contribute to excessive energy bills such as:

heating systems being turned on and off earlier and later than needed; and

lights and office equipment being left on after hours.

Profiling a surgery's energy use will also help the practice understand their baseload — consumption that occurs outside the hours of operation — and their maximum energy demands.

Both are important when it comes to ensuring you are on the best energy supply contract and are not paying unnecessary amounts. Equally importantly monitoring your energy use on a regular basis will enable you to make year-on-year comparisons and check if their energy efficiency efforts are having the anticipated impact.

HeatingSave Building Management System (BMS) — combining the best of Energy Management, Lighting Controls, Access Control and Monitoring Services

The HeatingSave Building Management System (BMS) will cut your energy usage by 20% to 30% with its energy management control, as its internal microprocessor constantly calculates and improves the efficiency and savings of your central heating system.

Using HeatingSave, simply choose the room temperature and the hot water you want, and when, and HeatingSave does the rest. It works with all central heating systems — oil, gas or coal — and links up with a PC to produce reports and graphs to fashion a powerful and complete energy management system.

Furthermore, the BMS system includes comprehensive access control and lighting control features, as well as an advanced smartphone app that grants you extensive control functions and comprehensive alerts at the touch of a button.

The system is backed by the Energy Savings Trust.