Smart metering provides granular, real-time visibility into energy consumption at the circuit, equipment, or tenant level — enabling energy waste identification, utility bill validation, tenant sub-billing, ESG reporting, and the anomaly detection that catches equipment failures and energy waste before they become significant cost impacts.
Utility meters tell you how much energy a building consumed over a month — smart metering tells you which equipment consumed it, when, and whether that consumption was normal. Submeters on major loads (HVAC, lighting, manufacturing equipment, EV chargers) provide the granularity needed for energy management, tenant billing, and ESG reporting that utility meters alone can never deliver. RLM advises on smart metering strategy, equipment selection, and the data platform that turns energy data into operational action.
A structured advisory process — from use case definition and platform evaluation to deployment architecture and ongoing optimization.
We assess your metering requirements — energy management objectives, tenant billing requirements, ESG reporting data needs, and the specific systems and circuits where sub-metering granularity is needed to answer operational questions.
We design the sub-metering architecture — meter type selection (revenue-grade vs. non-revenue-grade), communication protocol (Modbus, BACnet, cellular, LoRaWAN), data logger design, and the integration with your building management system or energy management platform.
We evaluate energy metering and management platforms — Schneider EcoStruxure, Siemens Desigo, Lucid BuildingOS, Facilio, EnergyCAP — against your reporting requirements, integration capabilities, and the analytics that transform raw meter data into actionable insights.
We design tenant sub-billing systems that allocate energy costs based on measured consumption — ensuring billing accuracy, tenant transparency, and the audit trail that resolves billing disputes.
The dimensions that determine whether an IoT deployment delivers lasting operational value — and the questions RLM helps you answer before any commitment.
Tenant billing requires revenue-grade (ANSI C12 certified) meters with billing accuracy standards. Evaluate whether revenue-grade meters are required for your sub-billing application — non-revenue-grade meters are less expensive but may not meet billing accuracy requirements.
Smart meter value depends on reliable data transmission. Evaluate communication protocol reliability in your facility environment — wired protocols (Modbus, BACnet) are more reliable but require cabling; wireless protocols reduce installation cost but introduce transmission reliability risk.
15-minute interval data provides much better energy management insight than hourly data but generates significantly more data over time. Evaluate the granularity required for your use cases and the storage and processing costs at that granularity.
Smart sub-metering data is most valuable when combined with utility billing data and weather data. Evaluate platform integration with utility data streams and weather normalization that enables apples-to-apples energy performance comparison.
Smart meters are internet-connected devices on the building network. Evaluate network segmentation for metering infrastructure and the security of the communication protocols and cloud platform used to collect and analyze meter data.
"RLM helped us select and deploy an IoT platform across 28 facilities in under six months. Their vendor-neutral approach saved us from a costly mistake with our initial shortlist."
"We needed smart metering and energy management across our campus portfolio. RLM mapped the vendor landscape, ran the evaluation, and we're now hitting our ESG targets ahead of schedule."
Talk to an RLM advisor who specializes in enterprise IoT deployments. Independent guidance from platform selection through operational deployment.