Top 8 Applications of IoT in Energy Management

In a world driven by relentless innovation, the convergence of technology and sustainability has paved the way for a monumental revolution – the Internet of Things (IoT) in the energy sector. 

Picture a future where power grids are not just networks of cables and substations, but intricate webs of intelligent devices that communicate, analyze, and adapt in real-time. This is the realm where IoT takes center stage, ushering in a new era of efficiency, conservation, and unprecedented insights into our energy consumption.

In this post, we will talk about the top applications of IoT in the energy sector – a marriage that not only redefines how we harness power but also propels us towards a more sustainable and interconnected world.

As the global demand for energy continues to surge, traditional approaches to generation, distribution, and consumption are encountering challenges that demand ingenious solutions. 

IoT emerges as a beacon of hope, promising to reshape every facet of the energy landscape, from optimizing power grids and enhancing renewable energy integration to empowering consumers with real-time insights into their usage patterns.

Following are the main uses of IoT in energy management and more applications:

1. Residential Energy

With rising technology, costs in consumption also increase. IoT offers ways to reduce consumption and the costs of energy usage. For example, IoT enables lightning systems to switch off or dim the light when they sense the absence of human beings.

The rise of technology has driven energy costs up. Consumers search for ways to reduce or control consumption. IoT analyse and optimise use at the device level and throughout the home system means switching off or dimming lights, changing device settings and modifying multiple home settings to optimise energy use.

IoT can also discover problematic consumption from older, damaged, or faulty system components. Traditionally, finding such problems required the use of often multiple professionals.

2. Commercial Energy

IoT energy management in the commercial sector involves the reduction of energy consumption and offers systems that monitor consumption and reduce usage. It helps companies improve functionality.

Commercial energy manages energy resources by providing cost-effective methods. IoT handles the issues like business organisations interacting with business networks to offer solutions.

Energy waste can quickly and quietly impact businesses significantly, given the tremendous energy needs of even small organisations. Smaller organisations need help to balance business costs while delivering a product with typically smaller margins and working with limited funding and technology. 

Larger organisations must monitor a massive, complex ecosystem of energy use that offers few simple, practical solutions for energy use management.

3. Green Energy Management

Today, it’s much more convenient to adopt and expand the use of green energy with the help of IoT. IoT-enabled wind turbines and residential solar systems provide free power to fully or partially fulfil a household's energy demand. 

As a result, residential renewables can reduce the average energy bill by up to 100%, allowing a household to go off-grid entirely in the entire convergence scenario.

Apart from helping save energy, residential renewable energy systems can also reduce carbon footprints contributing to environmental conservation.

4. Power Stations Connection

IoT can be used to optimise operations related to power production, thereby saving energy in the process. Power plants, wind turbines, stations, etc., consume considerable energy and need maintenance, resources, and effort to run them.

For example, using sensors to perform conditional monitoring of wiring and equipment continuously can help balance the load on the line and prevent overloads. Predictive maintenance ensures timely equipment repair and mitigates costly downtimes, accidents, and blackouts.

In specific scenarios, network-connected renewable grids and power plants provide consumers with a transparent view of where the energy is coming from. Using this information, the end users can also get the option to choose the cleanest energy source available.

5. Smart Metering Systems

Smart metering systems are the substitute for traditional solutions for tracking electricity. This IoT system tracks energy consumption and provides a customer with information to reveal usage trends and peak times, allowing the forecast demand for electricity and optimising energy distribution and pricing.

An example is Sense, a smart home energy monitoring app that tracks household power use in real time and determines the expense and how much energy each in-home gadget consumes, from bathroom lights to the water heater or garage door. The application even delivers real-time carbon intensity statistics to assist users in reducing their carbon footprints.

6. Integrated Control of Electric Vehicle Fleet

Electric vehicle fleet has increased as the world strives to minimise carbon emissions and lower expenses. In addition to the typical fleet measures such as utilisation, IoT suggests a new set of metrics for electric fleet systems, such as charge status, charging session information, charge/discharge cycles, and much more.

An ideal example of IoT's benefits for EV vehicles is an IoT technology solution for electric vehicle monitoring developed by CONTUS. The solution provides battery usage data, charging reports, nearby charging station alerts, route tracking, vehicle performance data, driver behaviour data, and more.

7. Connected Stations, Plants, Solar and Wind Fields

Another application of IoT energy is to optimise power production operations. Solar winds, stations, wind turbines and plants also consume energy and require maintenance and an extensive amount of effort and resource-heavy work to keep them running. IoT, for the energy sector, helps maximise performance.

Resource management in the IoT for energy implies a complex of measures to optimise the power grid performance. It includes the use of sensors, data analytics, predictive maintenance and other practices.

Continuous equipment monitoring and wiring using sensors, for example, prevents overloads and helps in maintaining a balanced load on the line. Predictive maintenance ensures the appropriate equipment repair preventing blackouts, accidents and costly downtime.

In a few cases, connecting power plants and renewable grids into a network provides consumers with a clear view of where their energy comes from. And with this information, consumers can use the cleanest available source.

With this application of the Internet of things energy, electric utilities producing the cleanest energy get more consumers, reduce carbon-heavy power and ensure better environmental practices.

8. Energy Storage

A whole new market, energy storage is gaining attention in the wake of the recent trends in the smart home sector and the growing role of IoT in the smart city concept.

Generally, storage allows consumers to maintain energy independence and resilience if an outage or any other problem occurs. Smart storage facilitates controlled and efficient energy backup and gives residents management functions.

With clever storage, consumers can make informed decisions about the loads and choose which loads should be protected, how much and where the energy should be spent in the off-grid mode.

Moreover, the consumers of solar and other renewable energy resources can better manage the clean energy they generate, control the surplus and ensure maximised performance for their power network by integrating smart storage solutions.

Energy storage is the IoT energy-saving application allowing household owners to control the source and volume of energy and vigorously respond to matter on the line.

Lumin Energy Management Platform, an example of a smart storage and electricity metering solution, provides consumers with monitoring and management capabilities. It simplifies the adoption of solar in residential buildings.