Category: Articles

 

Many UK businesses still rely solely on main utility meters for energy data. While useful, these meters don’t tell you where energy is going—or why your bills are rising.

Submetering System

A submetering system solves this problem by monitoring individual areas, floors, machines or departments. This enables precise tracking, cost allocation, and early detection of inefficiencies.

At Elcomponent, we design submetering solutions that fit your site layout and operational needs. Our systems are scalable, easy to install, and feed directly into our MW2 software for effortless reporting.

If you're serious about saving energy and cutting costs, a submetering system is the essential first step.

You can also explore the Energy Saving Trust for further guidance on improving building efficiency.

 

Energy use in commercial buildings can be unpredictable and inefficient. Heating, lighting, ventilation and equipment often run beyond need—costing money and increasing emissions.

Building energy management

Building energy management is the solution. With Elcomponent’s smart metering and MW2 platform, facility managers gain real-time oversight of how buildings perform. This visibility allows for fast identification of energy waste, whether it's out-of-hours use, poorly performing HVAC, or lights left on in empty zones.

Armed with real-time data, businesses can automate controls, benchmark building performance, and spot trends before they become costly. Elcomponent helps commercial landlords, universities, and corporate clients turn buildings into efficient assets—not expensive liabilities.

Guidance from CIBSE supports best practices in building energy performance.

A traditional meter gives you the big picture. A submetering system gives you the detail.

Submetering breaks your energy use down into circuits, areas, or equipment—so you know exactly what’s driving your consumption. This is essential in large buildings or multi-site businesses where usage varies significantly across operations.

Submetering systems

Elcomponent’s submetering systems work alongside your main meter, collecting detailed data and feeding it into our MW2 software for analysis. You’ll see exactly where savings can be made, where peaks occur, and where investment in efficiency will yield the best return.

Submetering also supports compliance reporting and strengthens your ESG story with data-backed evidence. It’s the foundation of an intelligent energy management strategy.

You can also consult BSI's ISO 50001 guidelines to understand how submetering aligns with recognised standards.

Understanding exactly how and where your energy is used is the first step in cutting waste. For industrial facilities, this means investing in power consumption monitoring at machine level.

With Elcomponent’s submetering technology, businesses can drill down into specific areas—HVAC, lighting, production lines—and understand which processes are energy intensive and why. Real-time monitoring helps identify faults, detect abnormal consumption, and support predictive maintenance.

MW2 Platform

Our MW2 platform turns raw consumption data into meaningful insight, showing peak loads, energy trends, and cost attribution across the facility. Whether you're running one site or many, Elcomponent’s solutions scale with your business, helping you take control of power usage and plan for long-term efficiency.

The Carbon Trust offers guidance for industrial energy efficiency, which complements the insights provided by our systems.

Reducing energy costs is no longer a ‘nice to have’—it’s a competitive necessity. The good news? Businesses in the UK can make significant savings with a few well-targeted changes.

Start by installing a reliable energy monitoring system. This allows you to see when and where energy is being used, and crucially, where it’s being wasted. Elcomponent’s submetering solutions provide granular visibility across your site, allowing you to cut waste without compromising operations.

Energy savings guidance

Other strategies include upgrading to energy-efficient lighting, reviewing heating and cooling controls, and encouraging behavioural change. All these become far more effective when backed by real-time data.

For further energy-saving guidance, businesses can refer to Energy Technology List (ETL) endorsed by the UK Government.

Let Elcomponent help you get started. With over 40 years’ experience, we provide the tools, tech and guidance needed to turn energy waste into business value.

Managing energy across multiple sites is a major challenge—especially when each site has its own equipment, operations and energy profile.

Energy Management

An energy management system from Elcomponent solves this by providing a unified platform to monitor, compare and optimise usage across your entire estate. Our LoRaWAN-enabled meters and MW2 software offer scalable, wireless data capture across wide areas—perfect for logistics hubs, education campuses, and multi-branch retailers.

Users can compare sites, benchmark performance, and deploy best practices group-wide. Whether you want to track consumption, identify underperforming buildings, or meet ISO 50001 targets, Elcomponent helps connect the dots.

Refer to BEIS Net Zero Strategy to understand national context for multi-site energy efficiency efforts.

With rising energy costs, stricter regulations, and increasing pressure to meet sustainability targets, UK businesses are being forced to rethink how they manage energy. At the centre of this shift is the energy monitoring system.

An effective energy monitoring system allows businesses to track usage across sites, departments, and equipment in real time. With this visibility comes control. Companies can identify inefficiencies, benchmark performance, and prioritise investment where it matters most.

Tailored Monitoring Systems

Elcomponent delivers tailored monitoring systems to fit any business size or structure. From manufacturing plants to university campuses, our systems are scalable, accurate and compliant with UK reporting schemes like SECR and ESOS. Pairing our hardware with MW2 software gives businesses the insight needed to make smarter decisions—saving energy, reducing costs, and supporting ESG performance.

To explore more about how submetering supports ISO frameworks, visit our Sub-Metering Systems page.

 

As organisations look for smarter, more efficient ways to monitor and control energy usage, new technologies are reshaping the industry. One of the most effective and scalable solutions is LoRaWAN — a wireless communication technology that makes it possible to connect hundreds of devices and sensors across large sites without the need for complex cabling or expensive infrastructure.

But what is LoRaWAN, how does it work, and why is it becoming so important in energy management?

What is LoRaWAN?

LoRaWAN stands for Long Range Wide Area Network. It is a low-power, wide-area networking protocol designed to connect devices over long distances while consuming very little energy. Unlike Wi-Fi or cellular networks, LoRaWAN can transmit data several kilometres, making it ideal for large industrial, commercial, or campus-style environments.

The system is built around three main components:
• End devices (sensors/meters) – Installed on-site to collect data such as electricity, gas, or water usage.
• Gateways – These receive signals from the devices and pass them on to the network server.
• Network server and platform – Manages the data, ensuring it reaches the correct application for monitoring, analysis, and reporting.

How Does LoRaWAN Work in Energy Monitoring?

When used for LoRaWAN energy monitoring, sensors placed throughout a building or site automatically transmit data on energy consumption to a central platform. Because LoRaWAN has such long-range capabilities, a single gateway can cover an entire building or even a multi-building site.

This makes it possible to collect highly accurate, real-time data without installing extensive cabling or relying on costly SIM-based solutions. The information is then analysed in an energy management platform, giving managers visibility of consumption patterns and inefficiencies.

Why Use LoRaWAN in Energy Management?

The adoption of LoRaWAN systems for energy management is growing rapidly because it addresses many of the challenges businesses face in monitoring energy use:

• Wide Coverage – Ideal for large facilities, campuses, and industrial sites.
• Low Power Consumption – Sensors can run for years on a single battery, reducing maintenance costs.
• Scalable – Easily add new devices as monitoring requirements grow.
• Cost-Effective – Minimal cabling and infrastructure needed compared to traditional metering systems.
• Real-Time Insights – Data is collected continuously, helping organisations respond quickly to inefficiencies.

For businesses aiming to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and hit sustainability targets, LoRaWAN energy management provides a flexible and future-ready solution.

Elcomponent and LoRaWAN Energy Monitoring

At Elcomponent, we specialise in delivering advanced LoRaWAN systems for energy management. By combining our expertise in sub-metering and data collection with the latest LoRaWAN technology, we provide solutions that give businesses the insight they need to reduce energy consumption and achieve meaningful cost savings.

Whether you operate a single commercial site or manage a nationwide estate, LoRaWAN energy monitoring makes it simpler and more affordable to understand and control your energy usage.

Contact Elcomponent today to find out how our LoRaWAN energy management systems can help your organisation cut costs, improve efficiency, and reach its sustainability goals.

For many businesses, energy is one of the largest controllable overheads — and in large office blocks or across multiple sites, the collective cost can be substantial. From heating and cooling to IT systems and lighting, energy consumption in office environments adds up quickly. With a well-designed energy management system, businesses can identify where their energy is being used, highlight areas of waste, and implement strategies that deliver meaningful savings.

A typical office building consumes energy across a wide range of systems. Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) are often the single largest users, as they are responsible for maintaining a comfortable working environment throughout the day. Lighting is another significant factor, with office spaces, meeting rooms, reception areas, and car parks requiring constant illumination.

IT infrastructure adds further demand, with hundreds of computers, printers, and servers running daily — and many left on standby overnight. Catering facilities such as kitchens and staff break areas, along with shared spaces like lifts and circulation areas, also contribute to the overall energy load. Without accurate monitoring, it is difficult for businesses to pinpoint which of these areas represents the greatest opportunity for savings.

Deployment of Energy Management Systems

By deploying Elcomponent’s advanced energy monitoring systems, businesses gain a clear and granular view of consumption across all their office spaces. This level of insight allows them to track how different departments or buildings use energy, spot anomalies such as equipment running overnight, and benchmark performance across multiple sites.

The data not only reveals inefficiencies but also highlights where investment should be focused to deliver the highest return, helping decision-makers turn energy into a managed cost rather than an uncontrollable overhead.
There are also a number of practical steps that office-based businesses can adopt to reduce bills once they understand their energy profile.

Upgrading to LED lighting with occupancy sensors can deliver immediate savings, while optimising HVAC systems ensures heating and cooling schedules match actual building use. IT policies can be introduced to ensure PCs, printers, and monitors are fully powered down outside working hours, and hybrid working patterns can be taken into account by adjusting energy use to reflect lower occupancy levels. Beyond this, engaging employees in energy-saving behaviours can help embed a culture of efficiency across the organisation.

Integrated Energy Monitoring Across Multisite Operations

For businesses with offices spread across the country, an integrated energy management installation provides central oversight of every site through one system. This makes it possible to view total business energy consumption at a glance, identify underperforming sites, and share best practices between locations. It also provides a platform to coordinate progress towards sustainability and net zero targets on a company-wide scale.

Large office buildings and multi-site businesses have enormous potential to reduce their energy bills. With Elcomponent’s energy management solutions, organisations gain the insight needed to cut waste, optimise performance, and reinvest savings where they matter most.