BelVis RM (Resource Management) supports energy managers and facility managers in responsible handling of resources, benchmarking of sites, bill validation and reduction of energy costs. Based on a powerful and flexible time series management BelVis RM enables tracing tariff and consumption data for all sites from the past to the future.
Bill validation
For each energy consumption point tariff information as well as consumption data (e.g. 15 min or monthly energy readings) are stored on a timeline. As all parameters are flexibly interlinked by formulas an energy bill may be exactly recalculated from its single shares, e.g.:
Energy consumption; peak and off-peak rates [c/kWh]
Network access; peak and off-peak rates [c/kWh]
Peak power demand:rates [$/kW]
Ancillary services [$]
National electricity market administration fee [$]
Metering charge [$])
Consumptions and charges may easily be aggregated according to different criteria, e.g.:
Site
Contractor (supplier)
Distributor
Region
For the purpose of bill validation the actual billing data (total charge, billing period) may either be entered manually or imported (interface via suited files) to specific time series.
Benchmarking
Benchmarking is based on the comparison of different sites’ resource demands and charges. Due to the flexibility of BelVis RM arbitrarily normalized benchmark indicators may be defined as e.g. consumption per site area or per employee.
Reduction of energy costs!
Besides benchmark support BelVis RM is able to provide further indicators on where energy consumption is probably too high and charges may be reduced. Thresholds/alarms may be defined on every consumption or charge time series indicating where and when a specific maximum charge, consumption, or peak power has been exceeded. Other indicators as e.g. the ratio of high tariff and low tariff energy may flexibly be defined: Once a suspect consumption point has been detected either by benchmarking or by an indicator the time dependent consumption may be explored in detail, disclosing further potentials of energy cost savings. Calculation of reference numbers: Arbitrary reference numbers may be derived from consumption data and charges due to the possibility to interlink the time series by mathematical functions, e.g.:
greenhouse emission equivalents
benchmarking indicators
Data management
Especially when several hundreds or thousands of consumption points and sites are to be supervised an efficient data input becomes essential. Basic data from consumption points (sites), related customers, contractors (providers) and distributors can either be imported via a file based master data interface or maintained manually. Consumption data as e.g. from remotely read electrical energy counters (15 min intervals) may be automatically imported via the BelVis Import Server.
External site managers may update the core system in different ways
Editing data directly within the table or time series via their BelVis client
Sending EXCEL or CSV files via e-mail to the central BelVis server.
Different formats of EXCEL and CSV files as e.g. provided by the energy suppliers may in most cases be imported via a configuration of the flexible import tool.
Quality assurance
Bill validation is only possible if each share of the bill (tariffs, fixed charged, consumption data, etc.) is available on the entire timeline. BelVis RM has the means to detect and mark data gaps and suspect data in the entire calculation chain. In addition to this several types of plausibility checks may be defined in order to check data which have been automatically imported:
Minimum/maximum
Maximum gradient
Freely definable check algorithm
Data gaps and implausible values can easily be viewed at a glance with the aid of the graphical status report. For closer analysis of data gaps or unplausible values a direct graphical representation is achieved by double clicking on the corresponding timeseries name. For further action as e.g. organizing the data gaps to be filled by external staff, the entire status report may be exported to a file. Besides the graphical status report customer specific reports may be created, which are based on Crystal Reports. Typical applications would be benchmarking (e.g. comparison of specific total energy consumptions of different sites) and bill validation.
BelVis RM customized to your needs
Based on a requirements specification BelVis RM is configured according to the users’ needs.
Resources to be managed (electrical energy, oil, gas, etc.)
File based master data interface (consumption point/sites, customer, retailer, distributor)
File based interface for importing consumption data
Interface to billing system for acquiring actual billing information
Tariff structure (all single shares of the bill)
Plausibility checks, alarms
Automated replacement value creation (detection and filling data gaps)
Reports (based on Crystal Reports)
Data export and automated data forwarding via e-mail
The requirements specification is preferably the output of a workshop with a group of key users.
