Page 17 - Energize September 2022

NEWS

Managing consumption key to solving

SA’s energy crunch

BI :energy, a new player in the energy management new regulations coming into force for building energy management.
space, today launched its first solution-offering at the Most notable of these is the ISO 50000 standard, and the Energy
Crecent Power & Electricity Africa expo. This flexible, Performance Certificate (EPC) which will become a legal requirement
2
low-cost, cloud-connected managed smart metering system is for commercial buildings over 2000 m by the end of this year.
aimed at the commercial real estate, office and solar energy “There is an old saying in the electricity industry – the cheapest
markets. The system enables operational and technical staff, Watt to generate is the Watt you don’t use. This new system puts
as well as business managers, property owners and managing electricity consumers back in control of their spend,” concludes
agents of multi-tenanted sites, to gather, analyse and act on Hislop.
real-time electricity consumption data across a site, or to Technical data and pricing on the CBI :energy managed smart
focus on groups or individual electrical loads. metering solution is available from CBI :energy.
Consisting of single- and three-phase connected
electricity meters communicating wirelessly with a managed About CBI :energy
cloud infrastructure, the managed smart metering system, CBI :energy is a division of CBI-electric: low voltage, a South African
developed and manufactured in South Africa by CBI :energy, designer, manufacturer and supplier of quality low voltage electrical
is designed for medium to large commercial implementation. distribution, protection and control equipment, including circuit
The compact, billing-grade smart meters allow for full four- breakers, residential current devices, surge protection, wiring
quadrant Class 1 (better than 1% accuracy) metering of both accessories, and metering products. Headquartered in Johannesburg,
electricity generation and consumption in real time at points South Africa, the company is a subsidiary of JSE-listed industrial group
of supply, sub-DBs and individual and groups of loads. Reunert, with international operations across Africa, Asia, Australia,
Data is gathered at one-minute intervals for key metrics Europe and the USA.
which include real and reactive power and energy, voltage,
current and power factor. This telemetry for each device is Contact Deepesh Dhanjee, CBI Electric: energy,
then rated to give detailed current and historic information on deepesh.dhanjee@cbi-electric.com, www.cbi.energy
the customer’s rands and cents costs for peak, off-peak and
standard time of use tariffs.
“Electricity has become a massive and unsustainable cost
to businesses, and we urgently need to change how we use it.
Finding vast amounts of data on the generation, distribution
and trade of energy is easy. But there is astonishingly little
information on how electricity is consumed – by whom, for
what, where, and how much. If we don’t know more about
how we use energy, we’ll never make the behaviour changes
needed for a carbon zero future,” says Roger Hislop, Energy
Management Systems Executive at CBI-electric: low voltage.
Installation is fast and easy; the “Fit & Form” compact
energy meters can be deployed with minimal disruption
to business operations and need no changes to be made
to electrical or building infrastructure. The managed
smart metering devices use proven Wi-Fi technology,
communicating either over corporate wireless network, or
aggregated over a single LTE wireless router. Most smart
meters today must either be hard-wired to a data network
or use 3G or LTE mobile phone technologies for connectivity,
which add considerable operating expense and do not
function in building basements and other low-signal areas.
The system is simple to integrate with other software
systems through the open API provided by CBI :energy. It
simplifies energy management, cost management and the
gathering of the detailed data which is needed to comply with

energize | September 2022 | 15