How energy monitoring tech can help with Local Law 97

First things first: Local Law 97 (LL97) is a new building regulation set out by New York City council. It’s a key part of the Climate Mobilization Act, placing carbon caps on all buildings above a certain size. 

You can find out all the basic information you need to know, like why it’s coming into effect and which buildings are exempt, in our blog post Local Law 97: everything you need to know.

Read on to find out what steps to take if you’re affected, and how Metrikus can help. 

What do you need to do?

By May 2025, any building affected by LL97 will have to file a Greenhouse Gas Emission report annually. This report will detail if a building complies with regulations, or exceeds the limits – and by how much. 

The carbon caps are pretty strict, so the chances are if your building is one of those impacted, you’ll need to make some changes to how it’s run. It’s essential to actively understand exactly how much energy you’re using currently, and how this amount can be reduced to avoid a hefty fine. 

What’s our solution?

The key to preparing your building for LL97 is understanding how much energy you’re using, and making changes to reduce this if you exceed the new limits. Our real-time energy monitoring solution makes it easier for you to reduce your carbon footprint.

Using a combination of DC, single-phase and three-phase meters, we can monitor any circuit up to 500 amps. All of these options have battery powered modes for even quicker installation that you can do yourself. 

Our system also uses the LoRa wireless protocol – meaning it won’t interfere with any of the other wireless networks in your building. Its impressive range means hundreds of sensors can be deployed using a single gateway. 

How does it work?

Using our solution, you can access an up-to-date overview of your complete energy usage, and start making improvements. 

You’ll have access to a range of smart alerts and rule capabilities:

• Establish personalised energy consumption thresholds to alert when limits are exceeded
• Immediately notify relevant staff members by creating customisable rules
• Track current and previous alerts for to improve management

You can also view real-time heatmaps and dials to analyse the data that’s most relevant to you: 

• Access a complete overview of your current environment in our platform
• Create a heatmap for all live data to identify outlying behaviour
• Build responsive indicators so staff can identify underperforming or failing assets as soon as possible

Our energy monitoring solution can also be combined with our occupancy and indoor air quality monitoring solutions, so you can find even more ways to minimize your overall consumption.

Our solution in action:

Step one: real-time monitoring

The first step is to work out how much energy your building is actually using, and this can be done easily through the Metrikus solution. 

Building owners often lack visibility about their energy usage, which results in high costs and energy being wasted in empty spaces. The best way to rectify this is through real-time energy monitoring – which is the most accurate way to measure your consumption and reduce those carbon emissions. 

A common barrier to accurately measuring energy use is a lack of good data. Our platform negates this issue, providing secure, up-to-date data at your fingertips. It can monitor performance across your entire built space and detect inefficiencies to facilitate more informed decision making. 

We can measure the metrics that are most important to you with precision, and display them in a single place, ensuring traceability.

Step two: cutting your energy usage

Once you’ve established how much energy you’re actually using, you can start to cut it down. If your building is affected by LL97, it’s essential to make your building more energy efficient. 

Our energy monitoring solution uses a range of battery-powered and wired sensors to track exactly what power you’re using, which means you can dive into usage trends from device-level, up to your entire building. 

From here, you can better understand your energy consumption, and get an accurate insight into how your space is actually being used, so that you can develop action plans to improve your efficiency. You can also compare energy usage with occupancy data, to pinpoint opportunities to reduce your consumption. 

Once you’ve established how much energy you should be using, you can set thresholds detailing your own energy caps that will alert you whenever these levels are exceeded, so you can identify and resolve the issue immediately.

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If you want to reduce your energy consumption (and save money!) by preparing for LL97, get in touch with a Metrikus expert today.