Social housing energy asset management
Case study: Apartment Complex
About the Social Housing Project
The apartment complex provides living space for people in the Guateng province of South Africa. The facility manager must ensure that every one of its 87 apartment units receives electricity and hot water when needed. The complex runs on pre-paid electricity, so precision in energy monitoring and management is pivotal to prevent an electrical shortage to its residence.
What was the primary driver in choosing to install carbonTRACK?
The apartment complex has a large demand from water heating. To reduce cost of electricity and meet its Green standards, the developer installed a solar system. They then needed to ensure the energy produced by this system is optimised, as generally residential usage times are outside of the solar day.
What were the project requirements?
- Meet Green Building Standards –aim of 50% of energy used for hot water production from renewable energy sources.
- De-risk the future cost of utilities & electricity for the developer through the management of their solar investment.
- Deliver a positive rate of return on their solar investment by providing a load shifting service: shift a small amount of electricity usage (approx. 1.7 kWh) per apartment (daily) so that more solar energy is consumed and less grid energy is consumed.
- Ensure the tenants are serviced, and happy – no loss to current living standard.
carbonTRACK was selected as a powerful and flexible energy management tool for the facility manager.
What solutions were used and what were the results?
carbonTRACK’s solar and solar thermal monitoring solution currently deployed across one site and the facility Management contractor has a login to the carbonTRACK online Dashboard. Currently, aggregate data: grid AC, solar AC, solar thermal and inverter data is being monitored.
carbonTRACK installed 50 units to monitor and manage the solar and hot water systems at the apartment complex. The carbonTRACK units are an enhanced energy monitoring system that remotely capture energy data of the solar panels and grid, as well as alerting for faults in the panels.
Impact so far
Early energy statistical results from the project show an improved optimisation of solar power usage.
Solar energy usage increased from 17% to 30% at the end of September, compared to pre-management baseline during July.
Through automated switching, carbonTRACK was able to shift 30% of geyser usage to daytime with load shifting.
