To help manage energy usage across its many facilities, Clark County, Nevada, is employing advanced enterprise energy management technology from Power Measurement (Victoria, Canada). Clark County is home to more than 1.7 million residents and host to 38 million tourists each year who come to visit the community's many attractions, including the Hoover Dam and the world-famous Las Vegas Strip. As part of a five-year upgrade, Clark County is installing a network of ION intelligent energy meters and software to help manage accounts, verify utility bills, and control energy-related costs at more than 650 buildings and facilities, including the McCarran International Airport.

As part of Clark County's new enterprise energy management system (EMS), buildings identified as the largest energy consumers will be equipped with intelligent ION 7350 meters. The meters will then monitor and report energy usage data to a suite of specialized energy management software applications, including Power Measurement's Energy BOSS, E-VEE, Energy Profiler Online and ION Enterprise software. The software converts the volumes of customer usage data into actionable billing and consumption information to help staff manage energy usage and control costs.

The EMS will communicate with various building control systems (including equipment by Johnson Controls and Honeywell), while importing metering data and electronic bill information directly from the county's electric utility, Nevada Power. The new system will perform graphical reporting by various time periods, facilities and commodities, while performing exception reporting to help identify billing inconsistencies, and providing a rate/tariff user interface to help users model and maintain their own rates.

Jeff Jacobson, energy program administrator with Clark County's Real Property Management department, expects a key benefit of the new system will be the ability to automatically verify and approve for payment the county's 4500 electric, gas and water bills each month. “With this capability, we will be able to automatically validate metered data, verify billing amounts, manage accounts and then provide the billing data directly to the county's accounts payable system,” said Jacobson.