Expert Q&A: Reduce Building Operating Costs with Energy Data

Who can benefit from access to energy data in your company?

Building and facilities managers are constantly under pressure to reduce operating costs and often start to look for such opportunities in their energy management practices. For facilities executives with a portfolio of buildings under management, barriers can arise with regards to energy data collection and normalization, creating inefficiencies and headaches throughout the entire process.

Urjanet aligned an expert panel with Goby, LLC and Beacon Capital Partners to discuss what challenges building and facility managers typically face and how to properly utilize energy data to overcome these obstacles to get building maintenance back on track and to accurately assess the performance and ROI on new retrofit projects.

THE PANEL:

Chris Happ CEO

Jerome Montrone Senior Vice President

Erik Becker Vice President

RESOURCES

EXPERT Q&A:

REDUCE BUILDING OPERATING COSTS WITH ENERGY DATA

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For the full panel, please refer to Urjanet’s webinar replay, “Reduce Building Operating Costs with Energy Data.”

What are some best practices for tracking building data?

GOBY: We find that people get the most value from a portfolio view of their buildings when they are tracking the data in a standardized format. It is difficult to compare buildings when data from the buildings in one region is tracked in Excel differently from the way it is tracked in another area. Having a cloud-based view of data that is normalized across the entire set helps you find some really interesting things that you may otherwise not have. For example, you could compare a building in California to one in Toronto once the systems and the number of occupants have been factored into the equation. Getting all of the data into a single place will help tremendously with predictive analytics and help companies make more intelligent decisions in regards to all facets of sustainability.

What problems did you run into when you first started to develop your energy efficiency programs?

BEACON CAPITAL: One of the problems we ran into when we developed our initial energy efficiency programs involved the manual collection of energy data. Sometimes the responsibility to collect data fell into the hands of people who were not proficient in understanding all of the contents on the statements. They did not understand multipliers or the minutia of the buildings. This complexity, which led to human errors, made the data unreliable and our analysis faulty. Additionally, the often incomplete data sets caused us to have to work harder to get the answers to our questions about the cause of an issue.

What do your customers most commonly struggle with when it comes to data acquisition?

GOBY: A major issue I see is the timeliness of the data. We have several customers that are stuck in a billing cycle in which data from paper invoices is manually entered into a system. Typically, the bill is due about 15 days from the day the invoice is mailed and by the time it goes through the approval process, the due date has already passed. We are looking at $3,000 to $5,000 penalties each time. From an accounting perspective, having the data aggregated in one place definitely results in avoiding costs.

What are the best sustainability metrics to track?

BEACON CAPITAL: I would recommend tracking as many as you can, especially those related to LEED points. We assess the building environment for our tenants, cost savings, and the building’s environmental impact. Therefore, we use economic data, energy data, indoor environmental air quality data, and more.

GOBY: I would say the key sustainability metrics most people want to track are energy, water, and waste. They are looking at what goes into and out of a building and how much power it uses. These factors are the basis for the carbon footprint calculation.

What sorts of data challenges do you run into when trying to compare the energy usage of different buildings?

BEACON CAPITAL: It can be a challenge to gather data from utilities and in some cases from tenants. With so many different data formats and sources, all kinds of inconsistencies arise. Additionally, different billing cycles slow down the collection process and your ability to look at the data in near real-time. As a result, it is commonplace for energy and facilities managers to rely on old data, making it more difficult to identify and fix problems.

How do you begin to analyze building data?

GOBY: After the data is gathered in a single place, it is important to normalize it. It’s helpful for me to know that energy is up this month, but there may be a slue of different reasons. I had my team pull information on Chicago buildings and Texas buildings to compare their performances over the summer because Chicago had an unusually mild summer. We found that although the buildings in Texas use quite a bit more electricity, they operate more efficiently on a normalized basis. We realized that the buildings in Chicago were set for a much hotter summer and that the settings were not adjusted for the actual ambient temperature.

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“With so many different data formats and sources, all kinds of inconsistencies arise.”

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How is your team aggregating and normalizing your utility bill data?

BEACON CAPITAL: What makes data collection especially difficult is having to consistently pull data accurately across our entire portfolio from buildings connected to eight different utilities in nine total cities. Because data aggregation is one of the most challenging areas, we ultimately look to companies such as Goby and Urjanet. Having a group to do all the data organization allows us to make more high-level decisions and analytics at various scopes to really gain more insight.

In order to extract the most value from the data, we use it to target property managers and tenants of underperforming buildings for enrollment in energy efficiency programs. Normalizing the data allows us to create fair competitions among buildings with different energy efficiency starting points. Putting the data in front of the facilities managers improves their willingness to make the necessary changes, as they can see their near real-time progress.

How do you know that the utility data is accurate and audit-ready?

URJANET: There is not always a great way to ensure that data is accurate or that you are getting all the data on a bill when you are using a manual process. Urjanet’s real trick is that we have automated the collection and delivery of utility data. By using our computer software, we are able to ensure that our customers are getting absolutely everything that is on the bill and that the information is accurate. We also include a PDF image of all the bills, so our customers can further validate that the information they receive is correct.

Does a lack of data make you feel exposed to risk or missed opportunities?

GOBY: Without data and the ability to scale it across a platform, it is much more difficult to hone in on the behaviors we want to correct because

they appear to be random anomalies rather than patterns. It’s not about just investing in systems, it’s about identifying opportunities by looking at the data and fine-tuning your dashboard and setting alerts for levels that are out of the norm. Without all the data, we would not be able to run enough analysis to identify real areas for improvements.

How granular should data be?

GOBY: It depends on who is using the data. For property or asset managers, generally monthly data is frequent enough. For engineers and building operators, it is much more important to have 15-minute interval data, so they can fine tune specific machines and systems and understand when daily energy use peaks occur.

What has your experience been like using ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager?

BEACON CAPITAL: We use ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager across our portfolio and are very committed to it. ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager allows us to compare the energy consumption of the buildings we have in certain regions, which we like, but its granularity is not quite there yet: it falls a bit short on the data side. For instance, I can’t tell when a building’s systems booted up in the morning or when the heater or air conditioner turned on. However, it does help motivate building occupants in properties that are doing below average to instigate positive change, as it gives an overall picture of how energy-efficient the building is.

What are your thoughts on the New York City’s announcement that it plans to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 80% from 2005 levels by 2050?

BEACON CAPITAL: The timing is terrific with the global climate initiative summit and the climate march going on, but Mayor De Blasio has to work out some political components. While this initiative has obvious environmental benefits, there are some cost hurdles he will have to face. It has

“Normalizing the data allows us to create fair competitions among buildings with different energy efficiency starting points.”

“Without all the data, we would not be able to run enough analysis to identify real areas for improvements.”

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been estimated that the retrofits required will cost upwards of one billion dollars. Because of the high upfront costs, I think that people will push back for incentives and try to find other ways to offset the costs. I am hoping that the momentum that is being created on a global scale will help bring some of these energy efficiency improvements into fruition. Now, small and midsized property owners really have to think about energy savings. I’m optimistic that it’s going to make some great changes.

Can an Excel spreadsheet be set up with an external data connection and used for building analysis?

GOBY: I’ve read that Excel is the most commonly used database in the world and it’s probably where most ideas are hatched. For us, we look to get anything that we are doing in Excel into our platform. Excel is a logical starting place, but it falls short when different spreadsheets aren’t synced because they are tracked on various computers. It is almost inevitable that someone accidentally adds an extra column or interprets a field differently and starts tracking the wrong data in that field. More and more people are moving from Excel-based tracking to cloud-based tracking because a common platform across the country allows for better visibility and data sharing.

A platform like ours also has social features, so we are able to share best practices amongst our team and with our community of users. For example, if I am working on a parking garage lighting retrofit, I can go into our platform to see who has ideas about the type of bulbs that might be best for the project. Additionally, it is much easier to identify anomalies by putting alerts into a platform-based model. The platform can quickly point out an inefficiency, like when a sprinkler is on when it’s raining outside. We couldn’t automate that kind of alarm with something like Excel. Even more importantly, we can share analysis and reports with a much wider audience.

To what extent does energy data help you assess the performance of equipment retrofits and ROI?

BEACON CAPITAL: Energy data provides a management tool for us. We used to have to rely on the chief engineer to describe the impact of a retrofit on energy use relative to spending. Now that we have visibility, we can use energy data as a decision-making tool to determine what equipment changes we should make and what the ROI will be. We don’t necessarily hold buildings for 20-30 years, so we have to think a little bit more about the short-term payback.

ABOUT URJANET

Urjanet is the world’s first provider of automated Big Energy Data, helping organizations across all industries make smarter, more profitable and eco-friendly energy decisions. Urjanet’s data-as-a-service platform extracts utility bill, meter, and weather data directly from the source, standardizes it, and then delivers it into existing energy management, accounting, business intelligence and sustainability reporting systems. Commercial enterprises, school districts, and governments are able to improve financial performance and energy efficiency and achieve sustainability goals with Urjanet’s high-quality, timely energy data. Urjanet is also the trusted data source for many leading energy services and software providers and bill payment companies, enabling them to open new revenue channels, enhance operational efficiency, and improve customer satisfaction. Urjanet was awarded 2014 Top Product of the Year by Environmental Leader and is a privately-held company headquartered in Atlanta. For more information visit www.urjanet.com.