As a small-business owner, you have enough on your plate without having to worry about unexpected costs that take away from your bottom line. For many small businesses, energy consumption is one of the costliest operating expenses. Thankfully, there is a device that can help you meet your budgetary goals without worrying about surprise energy costs. The smart meter is a digital meter that provides you access to more information about your business’s energy use. With the smart meter, you can access next-day usage information to manage your business’s energy use, all without having to wait for your monthly bill.
What Is A Smart Meter?
A smart meter is a digital meter that automatically sends energy-usage information to your energy supplier. A smart meter will allow you, the business owner, to more accurately understand how you use energy and, based on the data, make informed decisions that can help you save money.
What Are The Benefits?
Designed to empower energy users, smart meters offer small-business owners a few key financial benefits:
- Ease of use: You can track your energy use online, on a daily basis, to identify the times of day when energy use is at its highest. Based on an analysis of your business’s energy use, you can take steps to save money on high-cost, high-usage activities. Based on the smart meter’s data breakdown, you can make critical decisions like deferring non-essential activities to off-peak times or replacing older equipment with more efficient alternatives.
- More accurate energy bills: Another benefit of the smart meter automatically sending energy-usage information directly to your energy company is that it helps eliminate estimated bills. Accurate bills are an efficient and cost-effective means to maintaining your business’s bottom line.
- Less downtime: The smart meter is an important building block of the smart grid. Because the smart meter can notify ComEd when an outage occurs and when power is restored, your business can experience quicker response times and more efficient outage restoration. Less downtime helps ensure that your business can quickly take care of emergencies and focus on the essential day-to-day tasks associated with running a business.
- Improved outage communication: If your business’s power does go out, you can quickly and easily report your outage by downloading ComEd’s mobile app at ComEd.com/App. You can sign up to receive outage alerts through email, text, phone or mobile app messages that tell you when your business’s power should be back on. If you have a smart meter and experience a power outage, such as after a storm, ComEd can tell you if there is a problem delivering energy to your home, or if the outage is a result of equipment at your business.
With a smart meter, you have more energy-usage information readily available to make informed business decisions. A smart meter can help your business reduce costs, improve profitability and save energy.
Want to learn more about how the smart meter and smart meter-enabled tools and services can save money and improve reliability for your small business? Contact ComEd at 866-368-8326 or visit ComEd.com/BizSmartMeter.
For more tips and inspiration for small business owners, visit Small Business Pulse Chicago.