Energy monitoring from single apartments

[kasemu]

Hi,
I am not native english speaker - please kindly have understanding. And also have not deep understanding on gas/heating installation issues.

There is a building consisting of 3 floors and 6 apartments. The building uses natural gas for centralized heating. I need to monitor energy consumption in each of the single apartments.

With regards to electricity I got installed sub-meters and that is not an issue here. However with regards to gas consumption I have a "problem" as there is one single gas meter for the whole building (in the basement). I wonder what would be the best way to monitor gas consumption/heat in each single apartment...I am not sure.
Each apartment has its own heat meters installed and they are read by someone once in a while. But what I need is to be able to monitor energy consumption in near real-time for own purposes - not with the utility involved. The issue on costs is not of interest, only consumption. Thanks for your attention.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Heat meter on the radiator pipework for each flat

 

[kasemu]

Heat meter on the radiator pipework for each flat

Thanks.
However, I am not sure what do you mean by radiator pipework for each flat. Each flat has more than one radiator (one in the bedroom, one in the living room, bathroom, etc.). Do you mean a heat meter for each radiator? or one single heat meter for the whole flat? In the last case, where the heat meter should be installed is not clear to me. Could you please guide me a bit on this?
The flats have already heat meters installed from the utilities service provider, but as mentioned I do not want to do anything with them as I am not interested in calculating costs.

 

[Gasmk1]

Your heat meter would need to be on the flow pipe work for each flat.

 

[kasemu]

Your heat meter would need to be on the flow pipe work for each flat.

I understand, but actually what we want to measure is gas consumption by each flat...
From the heat meter we will get thermal energy. Do you mean those smart heat readers that provide several parameters to calculate BTUs?

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Which you can convert to gas / energy usage

 

[hometech]

If you do not supply gas to each apartment (it does not have a gas burner for individual apartment heating) then how can you measure it? The method mentioned by others is so inaccurate as to be meaningless.

 

[SJB060685]

If you do not supply gas to each apartment (it does not have a gas burner for individual apartment heating) then how can you measure it? The method mentioned by others is so inaccurate as to be meaningless.

This is an area I'm not overly familiar with but I imagine if the know the input to boiler and overall combustion efficiency then you can cross check that with each individual apartment usage. This will in turn give you an idea of the energy used for each apartment. It may not be an exact reading as there will be heat losses through pipes leading to each apartment etc but you will get a pretty accurate reading. This you can then charge for each apartment and their respective readings.

 

[John.g]

If the individual meters show Kwh then divide that figure by 10.4 (I think) and you will get the consumption in Cubic meters almost but this should be divided by the overall efficiency to get the actual gas consumption but this isn't really an issue from a comparison point of view as every one is receiving it from the same efficiency source.
I think the meters only measure the flow rate/volume on the incoming hot water piping and the kwh is then calculated on a assumed supply temperature so will never be as accurate as a individual boiler/heat source installed in each appartment.

 

[hometech]

Communal heating (as this is) is shared. Individual heating is well, individual. You have either or. What you can't do is make one form into another. The clue is in the names

 

[Chuck]

Each apartment has its own heat meters installed and they are read by someone once in a while. But what I need is to be able to monitor energy consumption in near real-time for own purposes - not with the utility involved.

Seems like you are looking for a gadget that continually 'reads' the heat meter and then turns this into a digital signal. These are certainly possible (optical pulses, magnetic sensor, optical character recognition) but they seem to be the domain of the DIY electronics / computer geeks hobbyists.

Your best bet is to contact the manufacturer of the heat meter (if they are available they'll know) and/or do some Googling for a homebrew solution.

I'm not sure what the aim of the exercise is. If you read the gas meter daily and pro rata the results according to each appartment's average heat consumption you're going to get a set of data that is probably good enough for any analysis you want to do.

Is this question homework for a college course you are taking? It has an 'academic' feel to me.

 

[Ric2013]

Yeah it's possible to measure the heat input to each appartment. You need a data logger that constantly (e.g. once a minute) reads the temperature of flow and return radiator pipes to each appartment and the flow rate in litres. Then you need a computer to turn the raw data into a useful reading in kWh. If councils can do it for district heating schemes, there is no reason you cannot do it for your appartments. (It may be expensive???)
Hometech is right that this won't exactly or accurately calculate the gas use, but it will let you know how much heat people are receiving.

 

[John.g]

Maybe they use these units (HIU)

HIU - how do they work?

I've recently found out I have a HIU (heat interface unit) in my new build flat. I've been searching the web for info on how they work, but none of them answer my main question - does HIU work by providing heated water direct from a central plant into my flat, or is the heat generated by it used...

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