Energy Metering & Billing
When designing, installing or operating a heat network, energy metering, monitoring and billing should be a key consideration from the outset, to ensure the best solution is provided for the residents and the building owner or manager.
Flexible Metering & Billing Options
Evinox is a leading specialist in energy metering, billing and remote surveillance for communal and district heating systems. We aim to provide high quality, leading edge solutions together with excellent customer service to match our clients’ needs.
Using our own in-house billing platform, we look after hundreds of communal and district schemes for both private and social housing across the UK, providing bills for over 10,000 customers each year, in addition to many, many more using our PaySmart® pre-payment system.
Heat Interface Units & the Data Network
So, you’ve decided on the appropriate ModuSat heat interface units for your housing development, but what’s the most suitable data network set-up for metering and billing?
Our experience of heat networks has shown that reading energy meter’s remotely is the most straightforward and efficient way of gathering accurate readings.
Typical Network Set-up –
- ModuSat® Heat Interface Unit featuring an integrated heat meter in each home
- As standard we recommend using a hard-wired BUS, Ethernet or fibre optic network around the development
- SmartTalk® Data Logger in plant room collates meter readings and sends data to remote monitoring office via Broadband communication system
- Two-way communication network also enables the system in each dwelling to be fully controlled remotely and provides remote diagnostic capability and client support
- Lower running costs and more reliability compared to a GPRS wireless network
Credit Billing Services
For complete peace of mind for ModuSat HIU systems, we offer a billing package that provides full system monitoring, credit account resident billing and revenue management services.
Here’s a summary of what’s included –
- Quarterly download and recording of meter readings;
- Production and distribution of resident energy bills (by post and/or email);
- Revenue collection and bad debt risk management on your behalf;
- Ongoing tariff setting/management;
- Resident telephone support, for both billing enquiries and technical support with their ModuSat HIU;
- A range of resident support tools, including online payment portal and resident information pack;
- ModuSat HIU performance and fault alarm monitoring.
PaySmart® Pre-payment System
By providing a pre-payment solution, you can put residents in control of their own energy bills, allowing them to pay for energy as they consume it. This removes any possibility of building up unpaid bills or debt.
Our PaySmart® pre-payment system also takes away the burden of collecting money by the Managing Agent or Housing Association and provides residents with flexibility and choice over how they pay for their heating and hot water.
In addition, all Evinox ModuSat® heat interface units feature in-built PaySmart® technology, which can be activated remotely at any time without gaining access to the property, meaning no additional equipment is required.
Metering & Billing Solutions for Non Evinox Equipment
For communal heating schemes that already have heat interface units or meters and a communication network installed, Evinox can provide a fully comprehensive metering & billing solution to work in harmony with the existing set-up.
For example, a building with an existing M-Bus network and individual meters installed can often be accessed via the existing data logger, allowing Evinox to download data for billing. If this is not possible, an Evinox M-Bus data logger can be fitted, which easily connects to the existing network to allow us to provide a full credit account billing service.
Heat Network (Metering & Billing) Regulations 2014 Advice and Guidance
The Heat Network (Metering and Billing) Regulations 2014 implement the requirements in the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) with respect to the supply of distributed heat, cooling, and hot water.
Building owners of multi-let properties where heating, cooling or hot water is supplied to tenants through a district or communal heating network are legally obliged to do the following: –
- Provide detailed information about those networks to the BESI
- Install meters on all affected properties
- Bill residents using accurate meter readings and ensure the billing service is compliant with the regulations
Domestic Heat Meters and Point of Entry & Bulk Meters
Evinox ultrasonic energy meters are MID Certified, Accuracy Class 2 (BS EN 1434), and precisely monitor and record the energy used to provide heating and hot water or cooling for each dwelling in the heat network.
We supply point of entry and bulk meters, which are designed to record the amount of energy created from the operation of the central plant room.
The Heat Network (Metering & Billing) Regulations 2014 stipulate the following meter installation based on the type of network –
District Heating System: Point of entry meters for each building or riser, and bulk meters for the central plant that supply’s energy to each building
Communal Heating System: A bulk meter for the central plant that supply’s energy to the building
Evinox Residential
Specialists in energy metering, billing and remote surveillance for communal heating systems
Dedicated to providing high quality leading edge technology together with the professional service to match our clients’ needs.