The Results With more than 15 months of data from the building’s system in the books, the company is already reaping many rewards. One significant advantage has been the ability to closely monitor the energy performance of the building, trend past performance and make changes to reduce consumption – from scheduling of thermostats and lighting to tracking performance of economizers. This has been particularly valuable to support the company’s aggressive energy use goals for the building, which is already performing more than 75 percent better than comparable building stock in the region. The team was able to further reduce overall building energy use between 2011 and 2012, in part due to the data-driven ability to understand how the building was operating and to take appropriate action. One of the other biggest advantages of the system has been its value as a troubleshooting tool. The system, for example, was able to detect a drop in renewable energy production, alerting building managers to issues with the performance of one of the building’s three solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays. The building’s in-lobby display has also been a valuable teaching tool for both occupants and the more than 500 visitors the building has hosted, from university classes to the local chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council and international clean technology delegations. The customized display not only shows daily trends in electricity pulled from the grid,
it also tracks exports to the grid from PV production and associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions impacts. The display also benchmarks the building’s performance against typical office buildings in the region. For those on electric rate schedules with peak demand charges, the system also provides the ability to shed loads during times of peak demand, either automatically or manually, based on a signal from the electric utility. These capabilities have historically been limited to systems for larger buildings. Opportunities for Replication Overall, this custom solution offers significant opportunity for replication in other small buildings – an opportunity the company is hoping to roll out to its customers as a package of products and services. While the system has shown benefits in a small building application, it also offers the opportunity and flexibility to scale up to larger office buildings with multiple tenants. For those who are interested in driving behavior change with a respect to energy consumption, a field of significantly growing interest, the system also offers the ability for building occupants to directly see the effects of their efforts and claim associated energy and cost savings. Finally, significant energy and cost saving opportunities can be found in the ability of building managers to track and manage building energy use remotely (from lights left on to managing temperature setbacks for heating and cooling) during evenings and weekends. Dave Wortman is program manager for Brendle Group, an engineering consulting firm focused on sustainability. Contact him at dwortman@brendlegroup.com.
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solution was a fraction of the cost of many of today’s off-the-shelf energy management and display systems. Employing wireless controls avoided the need for more costly re-wiring of the building, while the DAQFactory software was easy to use and required little staff training.