As we approach the end of the year, we take a look back on some of the key technology releases that have enabled our partners to expand their understanding of energy performance in the buildings/sites that they manage (and save time and money doing so); improve synchronization amongst project teams, analysts and management teams through multiple new collaboration tools; as well as seamlessly import and manage their utility/IoTs/sub-meter data on the Wattics energy management platform through several new third-party integrations.
Let’s take a look at these developments in more detail…
1. Energy analytics tools to reduce analysis time and cost
Peak Demand Finder
Wattics released an energy analytics tool, the Peak Demand Finder, capable of assisting users to identify peak demand (kVA/kW) of individual appliances, of a particular organisation and/or site. Users can select to see peak demand in a 15-min or 30-min moving average.
This new tool is particularly useful when examining and comparing against peak demand values (kVA/kW) in utility energy bills — to understand which equipment or areas of your business are causing spikes in demand and potentially resulting in additional costs in your bill each month.
[Resource]: The short video below demonstrates how to use the Peak Demand Finder in the Wattics energy monitoring dashboard:
[Resource]: Find written step-by-step guide to using the peak demand finder in your Wattics dashboard here —> Analyse energy demand with Peak Demand Finder
Visualize cumulative data
Wattics has released a feature in the ‘Raw Data‘ tab that allows you to visualize and validate cumulative readings from your electricity, gas, water meters as well as identify potential spikes or anomalies with ‘per phase’ cumulative readings.
Figure 1: Cumulative meter readings (Total)
Figure 2: Cumulative meter readings (Per Phase)
This tool can also provide valuable insights about your longer-term energy usage patterns and prove to be very powerful to troubleshoot “under the hood” issues with the readings our platform has received from your meters eg. faulty equipment, design flaw or changes in the installation/facility.
[Resource]: Here you can find more information on accessing cumulative readings in the Wattics dashboard —> Visualise cumulative data readings in your dashboard
Improved Measurement and Verification User Interface
The Wattics IPMVP Measurement and Verification Tool received a facelift to substantially improve the user experience, navigation, and layout of the M&V project management feature.
A summary of key improvements:
- Larger chart area for analysis
- Improved layout for enhanced navigation and user experience
- Increase flexibility with the option to delete adjustment variables
[Resource]: To see the and improved Measurement & Verification tool in the Wattics dashboard, click on the following link for the full feature tour M&V: New & improved (tour available to Wattics users)
[Resource]: An instructional guide to the Wattics M&V project management tool can be found here —> Measurement and Verification by IPMVP: A step-by-step guide
Flexible processing of CSV data files
This year, Wattics worked extensively to allowing a quick and seamless connection with meter devices. Today, we can virtually configure our back-end parser to process any device CSV datafile based on a sample of such a file received by the partner
Formula meter applied to cost for bill validation
Wattics’ latest feature release harnesses the power of the Formula Composer tool to perform calculations that better reflect current tariff structure and costs in your country – as well as add these to utility bills in an automated fashion!
This new tool increases the flexibility and freedom with which to create bespoke utility bills that reflect unique current tariff structure and costs, while still having the ability to automate the distribution of utility bills at scale to a large amount of users/customers.
Figure 3: Cost Meters in Wattics Utility Bill Report
Below you can access the knowledge article with more on the ‘Cost Meter’ and how you can set these up in your dashboard, and add to your utility bills:
2. Improving collaboration amongst project teams
Interactive Notes
Interactive notes allows energy managers and professionals to interact by sharing notes and comments about data patterns and other events associated with sites, energy meters, business and sensor data to improve collaboration and the service to customers.
This is especially useful for teams in different locations across the world to collaborate and improve communication through a cloud energy management platform, accessible from virtually any location!
Energy service companies and consultants can enable interactive notes for their clients in order to receive notifications about new comments/replies. This feature can also be made private for use by administrators on the platform only.
[Resource]: The short video below demonstrates how to use the Interactive Notes in the Wattics dashboard:
In-app Document sharing & third-party embedded applications and websites
Throughout the past months, we have announced several integrations, made possible through the embedded pages tool, that allows energy analysts and team to add and share project-related files from 3rd party software and programmes, web portals eg. Google Drive, One Drive and more. Any website (eg. Wikipedia), your own company website, portal, report or a contract can be embedded into the Wattics dashboard, provided that the resource being added can be ‘i-framed‘.
[Resource]: How to embed Google Drive docs and folders
[Resource]: How to embed Microsoft OneDrive into Wattics
[Resource]: Watch the video below to learn more embedding your favorited web portals, sites, CRM – any additional content which brings value to your analysis and/or your customers:
3. Data import through third-party software and hardware integrations
As a hardware-agnostic platform, we are continually improving the interoperability of the dashboard for integration with leading smart grid and IoT device providers globally.
WattWatchers meter integration (Australia)
Wattics recently partnered with Australian digital energy company, Wattwatchers, to deliver IoT-enabled energy management solutions, helping commercial and industrial sector businesses manage their watts’ better, through real-time meter data and machine-learning analytics.
Through the partnership, Wattics and Wattwatchers offers a powerful tool-set for energy services professionals, underpinned by Wattwatchers’ wireless monitoring technology, and Wattics’ analytics platform for the identification of energy-intensive appliances and sites; IPMVP-based measurement and verification of savings; operations wastage analysis; and, intelligent organisation of energy efficiency projects and tracking of their progress.
For more on the Wattics-Wattwatchers partnership, see the resources below:
[Resource]: Wattics blog – Wattics and Wattwatchers partner to deliver advanced level IoT energy management solutions
[Resource]: EIN Press Release – Managing Electricity Gets Global Boost From Wattics Integration With Wattwatchers
[Resource]: Connect your Wattwatchers device to Wattics energy management software
Buddy IoT devices integration (US and Asia)
Buddy Technologies and Wattics entered into a technology partnership to provide real-time energy monitoring (Buddy Ohm), energy analytics and reporting (Wattics) to commercial and industrial customers. Buddy Technologies is a publicly-traded company that operates a cloud-based data management platform and resource monitoring solution for commercial, industrial and multi-family residential buildings. According to Buddy CEO, Travis Gerber, Wattics technology with the Buddy’s own “Ohm” platform will bring its customers to a totally new level of insight that it could not find with any other platform on the market today.
More on Buddy-Wattics partnership to follow in 2020.
RESTFUl API to build third-party analytics
Our API (application programming interface) allows our partners to integrate with their processed data from the Wattics platform to generate their own graphs, reports, and custom analytics.
Wattics API details can be accessed here: Retrieve your data pushed to the Wattics dashboard
Data gap and Sentinel Webhooks
Wattics partners can now set up a webhook* in their dashboard to receive a notification to their servers should time a data gap or sentinel notification occur. To set up webhooks in your Wattics dashboard, simply navigate to the ‘Admin’ (admin users) section and then ‘Settings’.
* a webhook also called a web callback or HTTP push API, is a way for an app to provide other applications with real-time information.
