Low Power Radio Monitoring enables Boots to match energy usage to demand by cutting meter reading time from 2 days to 30 minutes.

The Boots Company has recently commissioned a new energy centre to supply all electricity, steam, compressed air and medium pressure hot water requirement at it’s Beeston site in Nottingham. An integral part of the supply policy of the new centre is the installation of 55 PACS battery powered 300T radio terminals. These are providing monitoring and reporting of energy usage to enable more efficient metering and billing to business units on site and also to third party users.

To maximise the benefits obtained from the new centre, Boots decided to undertake a project which would upgrade the metering of services.

At that time, the task of reading all the electricity and water meters across the 2km site took 2 full days.

Over 50 of PACS’s 300T RTU units are in use at the Beeston site, mounted adjacent to electricity and water meters. There is also a multi-channel RTU which links two VHF receivers at one location. With the 300T units in place, data regarding electricity and water usage is now transmitted every 30 minutes. This enables the centre to react swiftly and also to trend usage over a period to facilitate future demand planning. In respect on water metering regular monitoring also gives early warning of any abnormal flow patterns