As one could imagine, there are many opportunities for cost savings with regards to building efficiency that could seriously improve a leasing company or a landlord's bottom line. Investing in energy management and implementing cost saving measures benefit not only residential and commercial buildings, but also hospitals and other healthcare facilities, too.
In non-submetered commercial and residential buildings, for instance, tenants are typically billed on square footage of rented space. In this scenario, the landlord receives an electrical bill for the entire facility and bills each tenant based on the amount of space they rent.
The problem here is that tenants are not billed based on power consumption behavior, but rather they are billed based on the total consumption of the rest of the tenants. Because tenants realize that they are not billed based on individual consumption, there is no incentive to reduce consumption. The expectation is that if nobody else changes their behavior then each tenant will still pay the same amount; it’s a prisoner’s dilemma!
Tenant billing and tenant submetering allows each tenant to be billed only for the energy consumed within the rented space. Tenant submetering changes behavior because everyone becomes accountable for their own consumption behavior. Studies have shown that monitoring energy consumption by the end users monitor their energy consumption they may reduce up to 15% of their energy.
Power monitoring can also be integrated in a building automation system (BAS) and allow for a facility manager to have even more control. Installing a power meter is also one of the steps required for a building to become LEED certified green building.