There has been a lot of noise made about managing energy consumption over the last few years.  The sector is labeled Monitoring & Targeting, although almost all the effort has gone into the Monitoring and not into the Targeting and this emerging market has relied in many ways upon the old costly model of " discovery/report/effect change", as per the traditional Carbon Trust free audit, report and recommend. I believe that the market is moving and beginning to seek better solutions.  The existing monitoring (which has been based on smart-meters) has not delivered on the over-promises; the consulting model is expensive, and we are reaching a level of maturity, which the market is quite rightly now demanding value from.  

After all businesses buy solutions to a business problem, and that problem is that energy costs are becoming more and more painful for the organisations to bear. So beyond the perceived benefits of monitoring, albeit a costly and intrusive solution, customers truly now want and are demanding the targeting.  

Targeting can only be achieved if one can capture consumption beyond the incoming supply, by appliance and / or circuit. To do this using existing technology is expensive and invasive and so the required solution needs to be simple, non-invasive, and inexpensive.  

The knowledge of what goes on is key in deciding how to improve.  The knowledge of what is achievable, what is the standard is also required to be able to determine the potential.

Often energy reduction targets are set and I always ask "upon what data was that target based?" More often than not, the question is met with silence and why should we be surprised? The target was based upon meter data, not real consumption profiling ad most certainly not evidence based consumption within the estate.

Its time to provide real value to customers and that is our goal at Responsible Power. We call it Energy Diagnostics, where Knowledge is Power and where powerful data WILL provide powerful savings!