Runhour Meters - the Forgotten Energy Management Tool

For organisations managing a large number of buildings, heating system maintenance funds are frequently limited, and some method is required to allocate additional funds to buildings with the greatest needs. One useful, but often forgotten, management tool is the runhour meter. Runhour meters provide a simple, low cost method for monitoring system operation. When runhour meters are installed, read regularly and analysed for a number of buildings housing similar activities, comparisons can be used to select systems requiring attention, enabling the effective allocation of scarce maintenance funds. The paper reports on an experiment conducted over three years in six secondary schools - five in Christchurch and one in Wellington. Runhour meters were fitted to the boiler and read at the start and finish of each heating season. Fuel use in both expenditure and consumption units was extracted from supplier invoices. It is shown that simple analysis can be used to identify problems such as controls not alternating operation between two boilers or excessive system operation. Linking runhour hours with fuel and maintenance costs can provide useful comparisons for long term planning. Runhour readings would be provided by the building manager and analysis integrated in the normal accounts system. The two sources of information together provide an effective means of identifying energy waste and system problems without the cost of site visits and inspection.