Industrial Controls installed gas meters on (17) boilers in (5) different buildings a complex in Northern New Jersey. The NJDEP, as of 2010, requires that users of boilers and water heaters that are capable of generating five million BTUs or more per hour, submit the total gas usage for each device to the state along with a yearly combustion efficiency test.

The customer selected a gas meter that compensates for temperature and pressure changes of the natural gas, and has no moving parts.

The real challenge was logging total gas usage. Even though the meter shows a “running” total on each meter display, the customer required that all (17) meters be totalled in a spreadsheet every month. This was further complicated by the fact the each location required a key for entry to the boiler room.

Industrial Controls suggested that the customer use a paperless recorder to archive and email these totals each month to the plant personel. The meters were wired to their respective paperless recorders, and at the end of each month, each paperless recorder emails a report with tag name and monthly total for each meter to plant personnel using the customers existing network. This could also been acccomplished using wireless technology if a plant network was not available.