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SMART energy monitors are being rolled out by the Caribbean tourism industry to reduce extremely high utility costs.
The Buddy Ohm was developed by South Australian company Buddy Platform to help users moderate water and electricity use.
Using sensors, the device is able to deliver real-time information to the cloud, enabling building managers to make the necessary changes to reduce costs as efficiently as possible.
Buddy platform has now partnered with mobile operator Digicel for its Buddy Ohm product to be marketed, sold, distributed and installed across Digicel’s 26 markets in the Caribbean and Central America.
Buddy CEO David McLauchlan said the new deal was a big opportunity for the Ohm to expand across the world.
“Tourism is the largest driver of economic growth for Jamaica and the Caribbean region but many tourism operators are faced with extremely high bills for water and electricity,” McLauchlan says. “Working in partnership with Digicel, Buddy Ohm will help these businesses reduce their resource consumption and associated costs, which will have a positive knock-on effect for the region.
“The partnership with Digicel will also have a positive impact on our Adelaide based operations and we look forward to growing our engineering and management team to support our business growth.”
Hotels require a lot of energy to create unique tourist experiences so monitoring and optimizing usage of electricity and water is important.
According to the World Bank, electricity prices in the Caribbean are three to four times higher than the United States and in small tourism dependent islands like Barbados, air conditioning alone accounts for 48 percent of hotel electricity consumption.
The Ohm monitors environmental conditions around hotels and are powered by batteries that last a year, enabling it to be used in areas where power is scarce.
The system uses pulse sensors to track the flow of steam, water and gas to provide a complete view of usage.
