Significant energy savings result when government owned buildings are managed to avoid wasting energy. However, immediate energy data is critical in order to be able to recognize energy inefficiencies and ensure timely correction.
By the end of fiscal year (FY) 2007, the Greater Southwest Region (Region) of General Services Administration’s (GSA) Public Buildings Service (PBS) had installed “advanced” digital utility metering equipment at 67 of the Region’s largest buildings. The meters show building energy use on 15-minute intervals. The data is collected, stored and analyzed to determine optimal building operations and energy consumption. Data, such as outside air temperature, relative humidity, and information from building equipment (chillers, boilers, pumps and motors) are transmitted at least daily to the PBS regional headquarters office in Fort Worth, TX. The system is also connected with each building’s Energy Management System. This allows equipment operating status and temperatures to be displayed graphically for any selected time period.
Using the Region’s software program (known as “Dashboard”), information can be displayed, graphed, collated and evaluated from any desktop computer in GSA. The Region currently has one full time contract employee reviewing data and alerting PBS building managers of the potential for more efficient operations or about equipment problems. For example, data from the system will indicate if the air conditioning and heating are on at the same time. The problem is immediately corrected, not months later after money has been lost.
The Region began installing advanced metering equipment well before the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Act) required Federal agencies to install advanced metering equipment in their facilities to the maximum extent practicable by the year 2012. The Region is the only GSA Region in the United States that we are aware of, to have met the Act’s requirements to install such metering.
The benefits of our initiative are the following:
- Eliminates wasted energy and reduces cost by correcting problems immediately.
- Improves the building’s operational performance.
- Helps train building staff and contract employees on proper building operation.
- The agency gets a better price on utility/electricity purchases due to better building load profiles (a load profile indicates energy usage, or load, during a set time period for a building) and use history.
- Alerts GSA regional staff to building operation or equipment that needs attention either from additional training of building operating engineers or stronger contract language and requirements.
- Allows for more accurate tracking of the performance of energy savings measures installed at buildings.
- Allows rapid generation of reports, or comparison evaluations of various buildings, or groups of buildings, in the Region’s inventory.
Contact:
Jeff Nedderman
Program Support Officer
Public Buildings Service
Greater Southwest Region
U.S. General Services Administration
jeff.nedderman@gsa.gov
