As you may know, Owners Associations throughout Dubai are currently facing a great deal of pressure to provide savings on the energy costs that are associated with running a building. One way in which OAs are combatting the issue is with the installation of BTU Smart Meters.
What is a BTU Smart Meter?
Simply put, BTU meters are smart meters that measure the emergency content of liquid flow in BTUs (British Thermal Units). Ideal for apartment buildings, they look at the energy consumption within any liquid cooling or heating systems in each individual suite. BTU smart meters are most commonly used in central air-conditioning systems that rely on chilled water as the major form of cooling.
Why choose at BTU Smart Meter?
The undeniable benefit of a smart meter is its ability to detect the temperature of supply and return pipes in real-time. This subsequently provides detailed and useful information such as instantaneous temperature, energy consumption, flow rate, and much more.
For Owners Associations, this means that they can monitor the chilled water consumption of each individual unit and charge them accordingly. Otherwise, the OA would have to cover the entirety of the cost.
The BTU smart meter installation process
If you are considering an installation, there are a few things to consider:
- Firstly, OAs should weight up the merits of their particular situation. There are currently five different chilled water systems used in various developments throughout Dubai – a district cooling company supplying the chilled water vs the owner supplying the chilled water, as well as various billing structures with units either being billed separately and directly or the entire cost being covered by a single service charge. Depending on your specific arrangement, you will need to consider the best option and calculate the costs versus savings.
- Once you have decided to proceed with the installation, your building will be examined in order to determine if it is physically capable of having the system installed.
- After the install is approved, our technical team will then assess your property and develop a design that will allow us to retrofit the BTU meter. The installation will be overseen and coordinated by a Project Engineer and can either be a hard-wired or wireless system. We have experienced working with properties that are fully occupied and can also offer solutions for properties that are either centrally cooled or have stand-alone chillers.
- After installation, our certified in-house technicians will provide any ongoing maintenance, repairs and check-ups as necessary.
- Our dedicated billing team can then assist with registering tenants and owners as well as monthly billing and collections and manage the entire process end to end.
Get in touch with the team at Logic Utilities today to discover how our BTU meter installation and billing and collection services can help you lower costs and improve the performance of your cooling systems.