Nowadays we are bombarded with "Green" this and that and conservation seems to be high on everyone's agenda to save the planet. While this is essential to allow a reasonable lifestyle for generations down the road, today's building managers are faced with the immediate problem of how to cope with rising energy and water costs. Developing and effective conservation plan and sticking to it is the key. This can only happen with the accurate energy and utilities consumption information that a CIMScan system can provide.

Another important part of any successful conservation program is to get every day people involved. These could be employees, visitors, and in the case of a college campus, students. See the Conservation Station paragraph below to see how this product can easily make this a reality.

Numerous PDF downloads are available by clicking on the box with the yellow background.

Click here to download a brochure on using CIMScan for Energy and Utilities Monitoring.

MONITOR

CIMScan can interface with virtually any type of instrument used for utilities monitoring and control. The following are the parameters normally monitored.

• Electric Power
• Steam
• Chilled Water Energy
• Natural Gas
• Fuel Oil
• Geothermal Energy
• Solar Power
• Solar Hot Water
• Domestic Cold Water
• Domestic Hot Water

ACCURATE INFORMATION IN REAL-TIME

With CIMScan’s real-time information you can:

• Develop conservation strategies
• Be automatically alerted when strategies fail to meet targets
• Report building performance on a monthly basis to maintain/improve your building’s ENERGY STAR® rating
• Be alerted when system failures are detected
• Validate and improve building control strategies

DETECT & ALERT ON ABNORMAL CONDITIONS

Alert key personnel immediately via email, cellular text messaging, pager or optionally voice telephone if an abnormal condition is detected. The format of the alert messages is completely user-configurable and can contain real-time data such as current value, the type of alarm, the time that the alarm was detected, or the name and location of the appliance being monitored. A typical alert is shown below.

“The current rate of consumption for Electricity in Simpson Tower has exceeded the alarm limit.  The current value is 86 KW. The alarm limit is for 80 KW.”

The items in bold were automatically inserted into the user-defined message template. Message templates can be created on a group by group basis.

REPORTS THAT HELP MANAGE CONSUMPTION

With CIMScan’s reports you can:

• Verify utility bills using actual consumption and rate information
• Accrue utilities cost and prepare internal invoices
• Reduce overall utility (water and energy) cost
• Accurately predict energy and water consumption based on historical metrics
• Reduce and track greenhouse gas emissions
• Benchmark facilities within your organization by comparing their performance with similar buildings in the EPA ENERGY STAR® National Energy Rating System
• Increase accountability of your business unit’s total expenses
• Decrease exposure to volatile energy costs
• Improve your ability to implement and manage enterprise-wide energy efficiency and resource conservation programs
• Provide up to date information to allow you to effectively negotiate favorable utility rates

UNIQUE CONSERVATION STATION

Measurement data is normally gathered at a remote site and sent to the CIMScan server using an inexpensive device called an eLink. The eLink can be replaced by a complete local data acquisition and analysis unit called the Conservation Station. In addition to handling all the monitoring chores, the Conservation Station contains a built-in data analysis package and real-time display. A building tenant or manager can display a plot of the energy consumed over any period by hour, day, week, and month. He or she could also compare the consumption over two periods to get immediate feedback on how well a conservation strategy is working.

The screenshot below shows the main screen of the Conservation Station displaying the real-time rate information as well as consumption totals and trends.

Click here to download the conservation station brochure

PARTICIPATE IN EPA'S ENERGY STAR

CIMScan can be configured to automatically report consumption information to the EPA ENERGY STAR® National Energy Rating System.

SEE CONSUMPTION RATES IN REAL-TIME

Current temperatures or consumption rate information is sent to the server at a user-defined rate (usually once every minute). Users can log onto the server from any PC via a simple web browser and view this information in real-time.

Select one or more monitoring points and plot a rate trend for the last eight hours (or for whatever time the system has been configured).

The chart can be easily zoomed and panned. Moving the mouse over the chart will display the value in the upper left corner and the time that the data was collected on the right.

SERVER SOLUTIONS

We offer three possibilities to implement the server for your system.

Server software to install on your computer

The CIMScan Server Software can be installed on your Windows-based server computer for a one-time license fee based on the number of monitoring points. Packages for 25, 100, 250, and an unlimited number of points are currently available.

Small Server with Software Installed

We can also supply a 10 or 25 point system installed on a small Windows XP computer and configured for your application.

Click to download a datasheet for the computer used with the packaged system

This is an ideal solution if you intend to purchase the components and install and commission the system yourself.

Your System hosted on our Server

The least expensive monitoring system can be realized by utilizing our server for a small monthly fee. Four (4) packages are currently available to monitor up to 10, 25, 100, and 250 points. Every customer’s system is completely isolated from all other customers on the server. The alert delivery via voice telephone is included along with messaging via email, text messaging, and pager. Of course, we act as the system administrator for all systems hosted on our server.

EASY SYSTEM MAINTENANCE

CIMScan, like any other precision instrument, needs care and attention to maintain reliability and accuracy. This, of course, requires time and therefore a cost is associated with it. To minimize this cost, CIMScan has been structured so that most of the routine maintenance and troubleshooting can be handled remotely, with on-site work required only for component replacement.  A simple, relatively inexpensive support plan is available which allows us to act as the system administrator, utilizing your IT department for computer hardware issues and your maintenance department for component replacement.

Click to download an outline of what’s provided with our support agreement.