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Prison Industries Metering at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice: Two Years of Operational Experience
Abstract
In 2001 the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice Utilities and Energy Department (TDCJU&
E) completed the installation of an extensive
energy consumption metering system for their prison
industries system. As the second largest state prison
system in the nation, TDCJ facilities are scattered
over many locations around the state and cover a
diversity of prison industries and agricultural
operations. The Energy Systems Laboratory (ESL),
with New Horizon Technologies, Inc. (NHT) and
eComponents Technology, Inc. installed a state-ofthe-
art sub-metering system with the intent of
meeting the needs of the TDCJ-U&E group well into
the future. The system uses a web-based data
acquisition interface and is capable of near real-time
data acquisition and display. Fifteen-minute interval
utility and sub-metered energy consumption data
have been continuously collected since the system
was commissioned. This paper describes the varied
applications for these data at the TDCJ-U&E
department. Significant improvements in the quality
of energy use reporting and unit accountability have
been obtained. Prison industries now receive
monthly energy consumption reports and are
responsible for the cost of their sub-metered energy
consumption. Additionally, the operations and
maintenance staff have found the data to be very
useful for energy systems and equipment operational
diagnosis.
Citation
Bryant, J.; McBride, J.; Merka, T. (2003). Prison Industries Metering at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice: Two Years of Operational Experience. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu); Texas A&M University (http://www.tamu.edu). Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /5194.