Application Note

From the Fluke Digital Library @ www.fluke.com/library
Application Note
Monitoring energy
usage creates four
unique opportunities
1. Quantifying available
panel capacity
When an electrician or technician
evaluates a panel, they start by
looking at its size—the number
and size of circuit breakers
installed vs. the number of empty
circuit breaker spaces. Based on
this observation, they estimate
how much power the panel is
using. However, there are times
when a panel that appears to be
lightly loaded with several empty
circuit breaker spaces is actually
overloaded, because of the size
of the loads on the other break-
ers. Or, a panel that appears to
be heavily loaded may be only
partially loaded with ample spare
capacity. Logging actual energy
use eliminates the guesswork
and saves unnecessary expense.
2. Identifying energy savings
Power loads vary as widely as
the facilities they are in. Some
facilities operate non-stop, while
others have very specific times
of operation and are relatively
inactive the rest of the time.
Energy loggers create a chart of
those usage patterns over time,
so that facility managers can
analyze when and how energy is
being used and determine where
there is room for improvement.
For example, an air handler run-
ning 24 hours a day may really
only need to operate during the
portion of a day when the space
is occupied. In other instances,
an energy-intensive process (e.g.
operating an industrial electric