Grey County council has agreed to purchase energy management software in an effort to become more efficient and climate friendly.
At its meeting on Oct. 10, county council unanimously voted in favour of a staff report to single source the purchase of new energy management software to Canadian firm Utility Data Acquisition Service (UDAS). The cost of the new software is $5,850 annually with a one-time set up fee of $2,500.
Rebecca Danard, the county’s manager of climate change initiatives, explained that the new software will provide real-time and up-to-date energy consumption data from all of the county’s various buildings.
“It will help us make informed decisions,” she said.
Currently, the county relies on manual data entry to track energy usage at the buildings it owns. Manually entering each monthly bill is a time-consuming process – with more than 1,200 bills coming in on an annual basis. The UDAS system eliminates all manual entry and scans each bill and uploads the information directly. This will allow the county to track energy usage and look at historical data for comparisons.
Chatsworth Mayor Scott Mackey asked staff if anticipated savings from improvements the county could make to energy consumptions would help offset the costs of the software.
“I want to make sure we’re getting bang for our buck,” said Mackey.
Danard explained that once the data is in the county’s hands, staff can look at measures to save on energy and reduce costs.
“We haven’t been able to do a lot of the work because we don’t know where the problems are because we don’t have the data,” she said.
Grey Highlands Mayor Paul McQueen asked if the new data would help the county secure grants for energy savings projects. In response, Danard said that the data would be helpful with grant applications.
