Energy Audit Devices

Energy audit of public buildings, industrial and administrative facilities is carried out in strict accordance with the stages established by law. The energy inspection includes a preliminary stage, documentary inspection, instrumental measurements, and documentation of results. Any of the standard methods for conducting an energy audit includes a detailed list of measuring equipment, which may vary depending on the set goals and type of facility:

• When planning an express energy audit, a minimal set of measuring equipment is sufficient. For the work, devices for measuring power quality, fluid flow, and heat flow, temperature recording, and leak detection are enough. This type of audit is usually applied to small administrative facilities – public buildings, medical institutions, schools, kindergartens.
• If the client understands the importance of energy saving, its impact on the production process, and can calculate the benefits of potential resource savings, they will need targeted recommendations for energy conservation. A comprehensive energy audit requires an extended set of measuring equipment. Such a task is faced by enterprises with high energy consumption or technologically complex facilities.

Today, two classical approaches are used to organize energy audit measurements. The first option is the use of a mobile energy-ecological laboratory. In practice, a vehicle equipped with a measuring and computing complex is used for this. Data from measuring instruments are transmitted to stationary and remote data collection and recording devices. Sometimes direct contact with the measured medium is not even necessary: pre-installed sensors transmit information to a central computer located in the mobile laboratory. Data is processed in real time.

The second concept of energy audit is the use of a set of autonomous portable measuring instruments.

Approximate list of equipment for energy audit

• Thermal imager or thermal imaging complex. Allows non-contact temperature control of solid and bulk materials, melts, and gas streams based on thermal radiation analysis. Devices perform not only visualization and recording but also processing and subsequent analysis of thermal fields.
• Pyrometer. Performs non-contact temperature measurements based on thermal radiation analysis. The compact device allows determining temperature in hard-to-reach places – in areas with damaged insulation.
• Contact thermometer. Responsible for continuous or selective temperature measurement of bulk, viscous, gaseous, or liquid working media, surfaces of solid bodies, melts of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. Simultaneously determines dew point and relative humidity of air-gas flow.
• Gas analyzer. Determines the chemical composition of flue gases, monitors nitrogen oxide emissions in production, signals when the concentration of toxic or explosive gases in the working area air exceeds limits.
• Heat flow meter. Determines the density of heat flow passing through cladding, thermal insulation, and enclosing structures of buildings and energy facilities. Measures thermal conductivity of materials.
• Anemometer. Used to determine parameters of the working medium in ventilation and air conditioning systems, meteorological measurements at sea and on land, in mines and shafts.
• Metal detector. Allows searching and identifying metal objects in insulating and weakly conductive media – dry sand, wood, soil, brickwork.
• Megohmmeter. Measures high resistance values of cables, transformers, insulating materials, windings of electrical machines.
• Lux meter. Determines illumination and flicker coefficient of optical radiation simultaneously in several spectral regions – ultraviolet, infrared, and visible.
• Sound level meter. Measures and analyzes noise levels in industrial or field conditions, provides an objective assessment of vibration levels, determines sound and sound pressure levels.
• Ultrasonic flow meter. Allows determining liquid parameters in pipelines without pressure release and equipment integrity violation. The device measures velocity, flow, and quantity of liquid in the system.
• Hygrometer. Device for determining air humidity.