Energy Management Solutions – Alternatives to Energy Lens

Energy Lens is a powerful energy management solution for businesses that want to get a quick start with energy management, but it is not the the only option. Following is a comparison of Energy Lens with the two main types of alternative:

• Data-analysis services from an energy supplier
• Real-time-metering energy management software

Data-analysis services from an energy supplier

Typically the supplier will send subscribing customers an analysis of their consumption every month, or the supplier will have an online system allowing subscribing customers to log-in and plot graphs etc.

You may find that your energy supplier offers such a service for a regular fee, or even for free.

Naturally, some suppliers offer better services than others. However, there are are some powerful reasons why Energy Lens is often a better choice:

Main advantages of Energy Lens

• Compatibility: you can use Energy Lens with data from any supplier: vital for ensuring that you can easily switch to the most competitive tariff without losing your analysis software and procedures.
• Flexibility: Energy Lens has advanced analysis features that allow you to generate meaningful charts and figures (as opposed to just pretty ones). For example, it's common for suppliers to generate charts of average consumption (e.g. over a month). Of course Energy Lens does this too, but, to make the analysis genuinely meaningful, Energy Lens allows you to choose the days-of-the-week to consider, and exclude specific dates on which your business was closed.
• Tight integration with Excel: enabling you to edit generated charts and figures, and easily copy and paste into reports and presentations.
• Speed: Energy Lens has an instant-response desktop interface, making it much faster to use than an online system.

Back to top

Free Trial of Energy Lens

Real-time-metering energy management software

There are a selection of real-time-metering energy management software solutions on the market. Of course, every such solution is different, but there are some general themes that are useful in comparison with Energy Lens:

Main advantages of real-time-metering energy management software

• Real-time monitoring: by monitoring consumption as it happens, real-time-metering energy management software allows excess consumption to be identified almost immediately (provided the system has been configured well).
• Automated alert systems: it's typically possible to set up email alerts to occur under certain circumstances (e.g. when consumption or demand crosses a certain threshold).
• Centralized data and multiple access points: typically such solutions will use a central database to store data collected in real-time from on-site meters. The data can typically be accessed immediately from multiple computers at one time (using either a web or an installed desktop interface).

Main advantages of Energy Lens

• Much easier to install and configure: you can install Energy Lens in seconds, and there's no configuration required to get started. In contrast, a typical real-time-metering energy management solution will often take several days to set up and configure properly (with expert assistance).
• Much easier to use: Energy Lens is simple to pick-up for the first time, and easy to master. In contrast, the complexity of typical real-time energy management software can often mean that it takes considerable and continued effort before the benefits of such software can be seen.
• No additional equipment required: to benefit from real-time monitoring, real-time-metering energy management solutions typically require you to install special meters on-site. This clearly has a downside of additional cost and effort. Energy Lens does not require any additional equipment (although it will allow you to work with interval energy data collected from any meter that you do choose to install).

Back to top