A New Era For Energy
Big building energy consumption is in transition, leaving an era in which:
In the new era for energy:
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Electricity rates are on the rise.
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Supplies will be stretched when demand recovers along with the economy.
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Organizations still can't analyze, track and control their total energy consumption--but now, it DOES matter.
For decades, ‘energy management’ has been like a foggy night in the swamp; you’ll follow anybody with a flashlight. The alternative is to purchase your own (very expensive) flashlight.
But you don’t need the guide or his flashlight. You need to drain the swamp and lift the fog. You need to see exactly where you are, determine how you got there, execute a plan to get back to dry land and then stay there – all for a fraction of the cost of traditional ‘energy management’.
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Financial Controls: What A Concept!
When a Dow30 company’s cost of travel recently ballooned to 140% of budget, the organization reacted quickly by re-imposing financial controls that had grown lax over time.
Energy consumption in the average big building is 130% of optimal. Energy is still consumed like tap water while priced like bottled water. And yet, this isn’t a matter of deliberate ‘waste’. This is what would happen to any expense that isn’t actively managed and controlled.
But how can organizations conduct a cost analysis to re-impose financial controls over a six figure per building annual expense when they’ve never had access to the methodology to do so?
Normalized Results for Energy: Don’t Try This At Home
Effective performance tracking requires normalized results. Toy retailers don’t compare December sales to February’s. Farmers don’t compare fuel used during harvest season to winter.
Energy consumption hasn’t been effectively tracked and controlled because the factors that must be normalized: variable weather, fluctuating rates, different number of days on the utility bill, etc., occur too rapidly and haphazardly to be calculated by hand or spreadsheet.
For instance: July, 2009 was the mildest July on record for Indianapolis while July, 2010 was one of the hottest. With 35 days on the 07/09 electric bill and 28 on the 07/10 bill that also had a fuel surcharge and amended demand tariff, how would you determine if your school, hospital, office building, warehouse or industrial plant operated more or less efficiently during 07/10?
It takes carefully crafted software to perform the automated regression analysis calculations necessary to determine normalized big building energy performance results from one month to the next and deliver said verified results quickly, accurately and at low cost.
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Coming Soon To A Big Building Near You
As we transition into this new era of rising energy rates, it’s fair to ask: how quickly will the owners and operators of America’s big buildings embrace the power of EnergyPlanIT hosted software services, Smart Load Monitors, and dynamic dashboards?
How quickly will they bring financial control and accountability to their consumption of energy: not just HVAC, but plug loads, computers, lighting, data centers, work processes, etc.?
For most, it’s still a foggy night in the swamp. There are still many who will charge the going rate to lead you to the next tree stump. Flashlights are still for sale. But why would these ‘solutions’ suddenly start working now when they’ve never worked before? Draining this swamp will take time, but the IT revolution in energy efficiency is inevitable.
Information Technology is the future of truly sustainable energy management.