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News Room: News & Announcements |
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Sustainable Energy Solutions and the Future of Utility Services
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
By Linda Barney, Barney and Associates
David Wolins, Co-Founder Scientific Conservation, Inc. (SCI) and Art Vertner, Director of Strategic Development at McKinstry, presented an overview of sustainable energy solutions and the future of utility services in a Clean Technology Alliance session at Innotech 2010 sponsored by the Software Association of Oregon.
Capturing Energy Drifts in Commercial Buildings
Mechanical and electrical systems operating in commercial facilities are complex and these systems tend to degrade over time as they provide service to the building. Wolins calls this degradation energy or system drift. Changes can be caused when overrides are abused, mechanical systems are not maintained properly, when seasonal changes stress and disrupt aging mechanical systems, from temperature and sensor failures, or complex components malfunctions. These changes are occurring all the time, often imperceptibly. "This leads to a loss of energy efficiency and increased maintenance costs - resulting in 17% loss in energy efficiency over 1 to 2 years,” Wolins states. Electricity, repairs and maintenance are the top two building operating costs, making up 52% of the total cost.
Emerging Technologies to Fix Energy Drifts
Typically, building management consists of time-based preventative maintenance or responding to problems as they occur. SCI is revolutionizing energy efficiency and operational accountability for the multi-billion dollar commercial building market using breakthrough Automated Continuous Commissioning (ACC) solutions that can help slash annual energy spending. "The problem of energy drift is very real but incredibly difficult to measure. That’s what makes ACC so interesting and valuable. It alarms facility managers when a system is in danger of a major failure or operating outside of appropriate efficiency tolerances, so facility costs don’t spiral out of control,” states Jorge Moreno, Analyst, Environmental & Building Technologies, Frost & Sullivan.
SCI ACC solutions include hierarchical processes for, sensor analyses, rule based engineering, neural nets, work order management, reporting and feedback. In this model, process/electrical/mechanical systems are proactively analyzed to determine operating changes. This is used to forecast when to perform unscheduled service or when systems will fail. Tracking is performed on the system service and compared to actual performance to determine if improvements are realized. SCI solutions can be running and analyzing systems in days instead of months. SCI systems installed at Neiman Marcus and Santa Clara County located issues with sensors, chiller operations, VAV box operation, inappropriate setpoints and schedules and a variety of other problems. When corrected, these changes can result in both lowered costs and energy savings. Wolins indicates "The dawning of automated continuous commissioning provides the ability to automatically predict, detect, diagnose and prioritize faults and anomalies by energy cost enabling buildings to slash annual energy and operations spending by 15-30%.”
The Second Coming of the Negative Utility
In his presentation, Vertner talked about available energy, the role of Electric Utilities in delivering energy, how utilities are challenged to reduce the carbon footprint of their generating plants and maximize the use of existing distribution systems. Vertner describes the current model as one in which utilities are monopolies created to deliver a necessary commodity—energy. Utilities are obligated to purchase enough energy to meet the load, and plan years in advance to be able to do so. Vertner states, "Utilities exist today to acquire and distribute energy. They are compensated based on how much they deliver.” Energy efficiency is now discussed in terms such as savings in Kilowatts, expenditure payback in years, reduction in the energy bill or energy index. Utilities rely on meters that measure what customers use to fairly distribute the costs. We have developed an energy strategy based on limitless supply at low cost. The world has awakened to the reality of limited power.”Vertner introduces the concept of the Negative Utility or the value of efficiency. In this model, "the Negative Utility will be facility owners and occupants or their designees who will be paid for the energy they do NOT use. Negative Utilities will monitor and control buildings to assure the persistence of savings, will deal with resources holistically and may own systems in buildings,” states Vertner.
The Energy Efficiency Paradigm
Vertner believes that "Utilities need to value efficiency improvements the same way they value new generation sources.” In the early 1990s, both Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and Puget Power (now Puget Sound Energy) created pilot programs to pay for building efficiency improvements at the value of new generation sources. Instead of viewing buildings as simple consumers of energy, facility owners are paid to generate energy through efficiency improvements.
Changes are Coming
The Smart Grid and viewing facilities as income generators through energy reduction will change management techniques and facility managers will become less tolerant of wasteful practices. Vertner indicates that the value of efficiency will triple and efficiency systems, such as those provided by SCI, will become increasingly important. He also believes that we will learn to expect more effective indoor environments while losing personal control, inefficient buildings will become less valuable, and large data centers for building control will become commonplace. Vertner states, "Changes are coming - Watch for new utility programs in the next three years.”
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Linda Barney is the founder and owner of Barney and Associates, a technical / marketing writing, training and web design firm. Linda writes articles for the Software Association of Oregon and the Clean Technology Alliance. Contact Linda at linda@barneyassoc.com.
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