Metering: if you can’t measure it you can’t improve it

Heat Networks are another area where the adage “if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it” holds true.

Good metering facilitates accurate billing, protects revenue, assists in troubleshooting, allows monitoring and quantifies efficiency levels. The benefits are amplified in phased developments, where operational data from initial phases can and should inform the design and sizing of future ones. This can cut the fat from heat networks by removing design safety factors through by using real, in-use data. Many networks have the data already – just no one looking at it.

Thankfully, the technology is here to do it: meters have become data hubs, capable of measuring evermore exotic (and useful) metrics such as Coefficient of Performance and efficiencies. This is even more critical when we are entering an age where efficiency is synonymous with forecasting tools, self-learning algorithms and neural networks – all of which are only as good as the data fed into them.

It is time metering is given the attention its potential deserves. It is, in short, the door to the future of heat networks, one we should walk through.