{"id":12568,"date":"2022-11-18T12:39:32","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T12:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tyrrellanalytics.com\/?p=12568"},"modified":"2022-11-18T12:39:35","modified_gmt":"2022-11-18T12:39:35","slug":"normalised-energy-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tyrrellanalytics.com\/normalised-energy-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Normalised Energy Data"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The concept of a “degree day” can have a significant impact on your energy consumption levels. Being able to monitor your overall energy usage while taking each degree day into account can be almost impossible without the right data processing tools, but neglecting degree days entirely can lead to excessive energy costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Simaxx provides the perfect platform to monitor heating degree days alongside your building’s energy efficiency and consumption, allowing you to optimize your energy consumption and find other sources of improvement within your electrical system.
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A degree day is a measurement of the difference between the external temperature and base temperature, monitored through both the magnitude (the size) and the duration (total length of the difference) of the temperature difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In most cases, the greater the difference is between external and internal temperatures, the faster your building will lose heat. The longer these temperatures remain different, the more heat will be lost overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keep in mind that base temperature is impacted by things like the building’s design, the amount of heat it gets from sunlight, and even the heat generated by larger pieces of equipment. These are all relevant to how your building interacts with the external temperature levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are two types of degree day: heating and cooling. Both are relevant in almost every property and become especially important during extreme weather conditions or hotter\/cooler climates.
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Heating degree days are a measurement of the energy consumption and loss required to heat up your home to the desired temperature. Since this energy comes from the grid, using more means paying more for that grid energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is important for colder weather periods or parts of the world where temperatures are generally lower. The lower the base temperature, the more it takes to heat up a space, which can often mean that energy managers end up looking for more ways to increase their total heating efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Letting heat leak out of a building is going to impact its heating efficiency a lot. For example, buildings with poorly insulated windows are going to leak heat faster, requiring more energy to maintain a given level of heating.
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Cooling degree days are the opposite of heating degree days, focusing on the energy usage and loss involved in cooling down your home. Like with heating, most cooling methods draw from the grid, so less efficient cooling means higher grid energy costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cooling becomes most important in hotter climates and seasons. Since cooling methods can be quite limited, air-conditioning systems and fans are the most common options, but these both rely on buildings being able to retain the cooler air for longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not only is this impacted by warm weather, but also the passive heating from large pieces of equipment or other man-made additions. Recording all of this information clearly is important for finding potential solutions or ways to lessen the problem.
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In general, energy consumption is more complicated than just your standard energy usage. Effective energy management requires techniques like weather normalization to determine exactly how much is being used, which directly factors into total energy costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Different weather conditions impact heating and cooling in different ways, and this needs to be included in monthly data for the most accurate results. For example, having a colder winter than the previous year could make insulation improvements seem worthless if you look at the raw energy data alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Degree days are important for creating weather normalized data. This is energy data corrected to use the same weather conditions and base temperature, meaning that they can be compared more easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Simaxx simplifies the process of gathering and correcting energy data, allowing for more effective energy management within a single platform and account. The Simaxx platform also makes it easy to build your own specific method of creating weather normalized energy data, taking into account any specific temperature details or monitoring methods you prefer to use.
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Using weather normalization makes it much easier to investigate the reasons behind heating and cooling problems. For example, your building may have issues with insulation or a specific set of windows that allow too much cold wind in, but this becomes hard to identify without putting all data at the same “level”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This allows for far more effective energy management, as well as faster responses to the\u00a0causes<\/em>\u00a0of poor heating and cooling degree days. This might also allow you to identify a problem in one building that extends to several similar buildings or to explain to a property owner that their buildings are seeing excessive energy consumption for a typical year. Simaxx allows you to gather, store and analyse important degree day and temperature data to a high standard of accuracy, whether you are handling energy management of just one building or an entire office building complex. Simaxx also provides constant access to any historical data you have collected, making long-term comparisons even easier. The purpose behind a degree day can take a while to understand fully, but they can be incredibly valuable when looking at heating and cooling effectiveness. Degree days are used to correct all temperature data to the same straight line, regardless of their original base temperature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is usually a linear relationship between degree days and energy consumption. The more your building has to heat or cool itself, the higher your energy consumption will be. This makes it easier to chart through linear regression analysis methods but can become a problem for comparing data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By using a degree day system to gather weather normalized energy consumption data, a building manager or business owner can get a more consistent reading of their business’ energy consumption and energy savings. By normalizing and simplifying heating and cooling degree days data, you can untie each point of data from the base temperature it originally came from. This allows this data to be viewed in such a way that it can be directly compared rather than needing you to follow a specific equation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not having to calculate the relative energy consumption values can make it much easier to focus on the data itself. For example, seeing major differences between heating degree days may show that your energy efficiency measures are working or make it pretty clear that certain buildings are struggling to retain a comfortable temperature. By normalizing this data through a platform like Simaxx, you can view the gas and electricity consumption data as if it all came from the same period with the same base temperature. This can show if higher operating costs were justified, how effective your total heating and cooling improvements have been, or even how vulnerable your heating and cooling system is to weather changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This added simplicity means that energy managers can easily find whatever data they need, as well as allows them to explain heating and cooling degree days with a visible example in the form of a chart or set of equation information.
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<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow are they used to make Energy data comparisons more meaningful?<\/strong>
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<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhy does normalised energy consumption data help?<\/strong>
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