Understanding a building’s energy performance is critical when determining how energy moves within an onsite renewable energy system and the grid. Limited utility-provided data makes it difficult to benchmark energy performance since property managers only know net consumption but not how much energy their building is producing as opposed to using.
Assessing a building’s true energy use is necessary to assess their overall energy performance. Accurate benchmarking requires knowledge of the exact values of renewable energy generated onsite that was exported back to the grid (Rex), renewable energy generated onsite that was used onsite (Ru), and grid energy sent to the building (G). Since many meters provide limited information about the energy usage, it’s important to find the values elsewhere, through alternate meters.
Three types of metering dominate the way electric distribution utilities provide for their customers. As determined by local standards and policies, contractual agreements, and the building itself, these metering methods each have their own pros and cons.