One of the key issues in South Africa is aging facilities that are not equipped with the right infrastructure to support energy and business efficiency. Some can barely keep up with their backlog of maintenance, let alone comply with new stringent sustainability regulations. IoT technology helps these facilities keep legacy systems, while identifying new opportunities for cost reduction. For example, by using cloud-based, automated building analytics and diagnostics software, hospitals can identify energy savings opportunities and prioritise those with the greatest impact for the least investment. With an asset performance management solution in place, hospitals can expect to reduce maintenance costs by 25-30%, eliminate equipment breakdown by 70-75%, and reduce equipment downtime due to failure by 35-45%. Because of the critical nature of hospital power, an IoT-enabled power monitoring system also provides automated testing of the emergency power supply system (EPSS). This not only increases reliability, due to the accurate monitoring and recording of test parameters, but also greatly reduces the staff burden for such tests.
Contact Prisca Mashanda, Schneider Electric, Tel 011 245-6400, prisca.mashanda@se.com
