MachineQ employs IoT sensors for monitoring business power usage | Fierce Electronics

MachineQ has unveiled a power monitoring offering for businesses that uses sensor and IoT technology to track and extract electricity usage data at the receptacle, equipment, or breaker level, something that could come in handy as more companies large and small look at ways to more aggressively manage their energy consumption and costs.

The Comcast-owned company is leveraging its LoRaWAN IoT connectivity and new devices, among them a self-powered IoT-enabled current transformer called the MQpower CT that can be clamped to electrical conductors at the breaker or asset level to non-invasively measure real-time current consumption. MachineQ also is offering a smart plug load device, the MQpower SP that enables businesses to plug in equipment and assets to extrapolate energy data, including daily energy usage, instantaneous current, voltage, active power, and power factor. It supports a variety of plug types, including US (type B), UK (type G), EU (type F), and FR (type E).

Bryan Witkowski, Head of Product & Strategy, MachineQ, told Fierce Electronics via e-mail, “The MQpower SP provides detailed energy usage and power characteristics for equipment connected to standard power outlets, along with remote plug load control, allowing users to take action based on the utilization data. The MQpower CT provides visibility into a single circuit, typically corresponding to a single piece of equipment or appliance per breaker in enterprise environments. In other cases, such as refrigeration, you can install the device directly on the compressor to monitor refrigerator performance.”

He added, “The combination of the two devices enables us to monitor a wide range of power usage scenarios in enterprise environments – from standard outlet-connected devices to larger electrical consumers like single-circuit equipment or appliances.”

Flexibility to address a variety of use cases could make MachineQ’s power monitoring capability appealing for businesses in a variety of sectors, from life science companies and laboratories that tend to have high utility usage to restaurants and other food and beverage service companies that are facing rising electricity costs along with rising labor and food costs.

For a client like a laboratory, Witkowski said having accurate data on electrical consumption can help lab managers “optimize resource allocation and make informed purchasing decisions, particularly for high-cost or large-footprint equipment like biosafety cabinets. With better visibility into equipment use, teams can justify adding or removing assets, reduce total cost of ownership, and repurpose lab space more efficiently. Sustainability teams also benefit from this data, using it to reduce wasteful energy consumption and meet energy reduction goals. Over time, the aggregated data could impact lab design and space management, enabling more effective asset utilization and alleviating perceived capacity constraints by showing the availability of underused equipment.”

For restaurants and others in the Food and Beverage sector, granular power usage data could be leveraged in the scheduling of on/off cycles, to inform a utility cost-cutting program, and to improve operational efficiency, he said. In its announcement, MachineQ alluded to an Energy Star report that showed that fast food restaurants and convenience stores consume nearly 900 BTU of energy per square foot of space, or about 2.5x more energy than in any other commercial building.