BT's Smart Meter Project Saves £13M per Year in Energy Costs
The British telecom firm says that the 22,000 smart meters and 1,500 building management systems it has rolled out will also cut its carbon footprint by 5 percent. Read More
BT says it will save £13 million (US$20.7 million) a year and shave 5 percent off its carbon footprint by fitting more than 22,000 smart meters and over 1,500 building management systems across its property portfolio.
The installation program is already underway and will be rolled out to 110 buildings a month, while an international expansion is planned for next year.
BT is also trialling a new “sleep mode” for broadband connections that promises to slash energy use, as BusinessGreen revealed last month.
The telecoms giant plans to use an integrated energy management system to collate information on energy consumption and environmental conditions across key buildings and telephone exchanges using real-time data from smart meters and individual building systems.
The system will cover more than 90 percent of BT’s U.K. energy consumption and be able to spot ineffective use of energy, helping to reduce the company’s carbon footprint by an estimated 60,000 tonnes a year.
The program is seen as a vital step in reducing BT’s huge energy footprint, which saw the company consume 2,342 gigawatt-hours of energy in 2010-11 across its U.K. networks, data centers and offices — equivalent to 0.7 per cent of all the electricity used in the UK.
“Having real-time energy usage information for thousands of buildings at our finger tips will really help us drive down BT’s carbon footprint and energy bills,” said Richard Tarboton, director of energy and carbon at BT, in a statement.
“Thousands of smart meters placed at BT offices, telephone exchanges and data centers will help us monitor energy usage levels and identify areas where we can deliver savings and make buildings more efficient.”
This article originally appeared on BusinessGreen.
