The energy segment includes the monitoring of energy production at source to and through the usage energy at the client. A significant amount of research and development has focused on consumer and commercial energy monitors such as smart electric meters that communicate over low-power and long-range protocols to reveal real-time energy usage. 

Many energy production facilities are in remote or hostile environments such as desert regions for solar arrays, steep hillsides for wind farms, and hazardous facilities for nuclear reactors. Additionally, data may need real-time or near real-time response for critical response to energy production control systems (much like manufacturing systems). This can impact how an IoT system is deployed in this category. We will talk about issues of real-time responsiveness later in this book.