The Challenge

Robert Bosch is a multi-industry leader who operates over 300 subsidiaries in 60 countries; its core lines include automotive systems, from diesel/hybrid drive to steering, starter motors and generators, electronics, and brakes. Subsidiary Bosch Rexroth makes electric, hydraulic, and pneumatic machinery for industrial use. Bosch Security makes various protection systems.

Bosch also makes renewable energy products such as, photovoltaic and wind-turbine components and heat pumps for buildings. Robert Bosch is committed to complying with all environmental regulations, energy compliance, carbon reduction and a commitment to conserve energy in all its operations.

• Unlimited user access over the internet
• Easy to understand energy dashboard
• Energy and carbon profiles on demand
• Saving opportunities identified with costing
• Initial steps towards ISO 50001 energy standards

Specific Challenges

Robert Bosch is both owner and multi-tenanted leaseholder of a variety of buildings, a situation where energy bills are often split by department/square footage allocation rather than by actual energy usage.

• In many buildings there were legacy energy monitoring systems which were operated using mechanical revolving dial meters, considered as an aging technology and subject to inaccuracies. Readings of energy consumption were flawed and prone to error.
• Providing energy usage reports that were required by the parent company was a burden on administration.
• Existing energy usage data was not being used to target energy usage or cost reductions.

The Solution

The PSW Energy team managed the project from initial scope, establishing the level of sub-metering, implementing alarms/alerts, ensuring compliance, implementing energy awareness and providing auditable trails for continual improvement. PSW Energy engineers installed a complete wireless/GPRS communication solution for data collection.

The data collected from each site was transferred automatically to our energy portal www.meteranalysis.co.uk enabling:

• Real-time access to metering data over the internet
• Data collection, data storage and data transmission for energy management
• Multiple utility data from electricity, gas and water meters across multiple sites
• The Uxbridge, Denham site returned a saving of approximately £88k PA by identifying non-productive wastage

Results and Opportunities

• 7% cost saving on utility consumption
• The ability to split energy bills within a multi-tenanted building according to actual usage
• Accurate and timely energy reports fully compliant with the Robert Bosch parent company
• The PSW Energy solution meant there was no downtime or disruption to business activities
• Implementation across the UK

The Benefits

The Measuring Instruments Directive (MID) was introduced by the European Commission. The European Directive 2004/22/EC came into force throughout the EU on 30 October 2006. The purpose of the directive is to create a single market in measuring instruments for the benefit of manufacturers and consumers across Europe. MID metering is required for meters used in any fiduciary (i.e. billing) application.

Landlords, estate managers and property developers should check that they have legally acceptable meters fitted throughout their premises. The use of unapproved meters for billing carries the risk of prosecution. A tenant is within his rights to refuse payment if his electricity bill is based on readings from a non-approved meter.