Smart meters in manufacturing sector can bring savings – study

A new study from North Carolina State University researchers suggests that smart meters can improve energy efficiency in manufacturing.

The key driver is the willingness of managers to actually make use of the technology, according to the researchers, who also present the study as a proof-of-concept for using ‘event system theory’, historically used to understand the impact of unexpected phenomena, to work out the practical effects of planned actions in businesses such as adopting new technologies.

The study was based on data from 87 plants owned by a Fortune 500 company that adopted an energy management system utilising smart meters.

Data on power consumption was collected for each factory in the year before the smart meters were installed and for the year after the installations were finalised.

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Data also was collated on when the smart meter installation took place, how long it took for the installation to be finalised and how often factory managers accessed the data from the smart meters.

Among the results of the study on average energy consumption was reported to drop by 7.46% across all of the factories, with the company saving more than $41 million per year in energy costs.

However, significant variability was observed from factory to factory, with three variables associated.

The strongest of these, and the most self-evident, was the extent to which managers accessed the smart meter data, with those people using the data able to achieve greater reductions in energy consumption.

The others were that factories that received the smart meters earlier saw greater energy reductions and also the longer the installation process took, the more likely the factory was to have increased energy efficiency.

“The first finding here is that, broadly speaking, the smart utility meters were a success,” says Amrou Awaysheh, associate professor of operations and supply chain management at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.

“The two other effects were less obvious. Our hypothesis is that factories that experienced longer installation times were more likely to feel a greater sense of ownership of the smart meters and their potential.”

Patrick Flynn, assistant professor of human resources at North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management, adds that the work lays out a blueprint for using event system theory to improve understanding of intentional changes that a business makes.

“Not only can event system theory help us understand the impacts that a proactive change had, it can also help us understand the impacts that a proactive change will have. And that means our research has greater potential for developing approaches that can help businesses thrive.”