In 2014, Wattics Energy Management released Sentinel, a self-learning energy analytics engine enabling automatic discovery of energy anomalies and energy-saving opportunities, which has, in turn, allowed energy managers and analysts to respond timeously to unexpected events and abnormalities in consumption. Traditionally, this feature has been enabled for electricity kW readings only, however, the latest iteration of this powerful feature has been enabled for gas, water, Formula Meters. The Sentinel functionality has been improved for electricity meters too, with users now able to view consumption trends and set Sentinel alerts for kWh readings.
The section below expands on various uses cases of Sentinel for each of the meter types below:
- Electricity – kW and kWh
- Gas – kWh, m3, ft3
- Water – m3, ft3
- Formula Meters
Sentinel for electricity, gas and water meters
Wattics Sentinel alerts are now available for both kWh and kW readings for all electricity meters, while kWh, m3, and ft3 alerts are available for gas. Sentinel alerts and notifications are critical to maintaining a high level of control over peak demand and kWh usage while also saving energy managers 1) the headache of manual monitoring and 2) nasty surprises in their monthly energy bills by alerting them when kW or kWh usage is excessively higher or lower than expected—based on historical trends. The same is true for water meters where water consumption is abnormally high or low, and warrant further investigation into a potential leak or other faults.
Let’s take a look at a few examples in the energy monitoring dashboard. Image 1 below depicts the Sentinel model generated for an electricity meter sending both kW and kWh readings to Wattics. Similarly, Image 2 depicts the Sentinel model generated for a gas meter, where the kWh value is presented in the graph.
Image 1: Sentinel model generated for electricity meter sending kW and kWh readings to Wattics.
(Please note: the dropdown as shown in the image above will only appear if your electricity meters are sending both kW and kWh readings to Wattics.)
Image 2: kWh Sentinel model generated for gas meter
Sentinel for kWh hour readings is in a phased release. If your meter sends kWh readings but is not currently visible in your Sentinel tab, please contact us using the form at the bottom of the page to enable this functionality on your dashboard.
Sentinel for Formula Composer meters
Wattics Sentinel alerts are also enabled for Formula Composer meters, in the same way as they are for electricity, gas and water meters. Potential use cases for Sentinel alerts to be applied to Formula Meters include:
1.Anomaly detection for normalized energy consumption based on KPIs eg. energy consumption in relation to production or Cooling Degree Days/Heating Degree Days, or sqm/GFA etc.
2.Solar PV energy production based on KPIs eg. The variance between expected kWh and actual kWh; performance ratio of solar PV plant i.e. relationship between actual plant energy production and designed target energy production.
(*Please note: Sentinel alerts are available for kWh readings for electricity and gas formula meters.)
The steps below demonstrated to set up Sentinel alerts for Wattics meters. To get started, log in to your dashboard and navigate to the alerts notifications tab and click on ‘New Alert’.
Next, fill in the fields, in the pop-up prompt depicted in the image below:
- Select a monitored point (eg. electricity, gas, water, Formula Composer, temperature etc) for which to create an alert from the menu tree
- For electricity meters (select kW or kWh). kWh/m3/ft3 alerts are available for gas meters
- Create the alert
That’s it! Once you have created your alert(s), you will be able to see them in your Sentinel Alerts tab in your dashboard.
Raw Data – New Charting Options
Also new to the Wattics Dashboard is new charting options (Smooth, Peaks, Valleys, All) which allows users to better identify consumption events eg. energy consumption “peaks” or “valleys”, especially when analysing data in large timeframes, where traditionally, data is averaged and high/low consumption events aren’t easily identified. These new options are available from the bottom of the Control Panel as depicted in the image below.
- Smooth: this is the behaviour you are already used to. The quickest option for identifying general trends more than checking readings at specific times.
- Peaks: your go-to option when you are after those highest values in your dataset (e.g. peak demand)
- Valleys: rely on this one for finding those lowest readings (e.g. power factor)
- All will plot the full dataset. The chart will look busier. The dashboard won’t be as responsive as with the previous three options. The best option when you need to check readings at specific times.
New hardware integration: Smappee
Wattics has recently partnered with Smappee, a multinational clean-tech company to help energy service companies (ESCOs), energy analysts, managers to analyse real-time electricity, solar power, gas and water data. Through the new integration, Smappee device holders will be able to send their meter/sensor data to Wattics energy management platform to perform deeper analysis into energy, water use, waste, opportunities for savings and efficiencies in industrial and commercial buildings and businesses. This article is a step-by-step guide on how to send your Smappee data to your Wattics dashboard > [Integrate your Smappee device with Wattics energy management software]
If you are new to Wattics and want to know more about how these features might be useful to your projects, or if you’re an existing partner that would like further information about these new developments, please fill in the form below:
