Intelligent Energy Management Systems for Multi-Facility Operations

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Intelligent Energy ManagementSystems for Multi-Facility Operations

YOUR ROAD MAP TO ENERGY SAVINGS AND OPTIMIZATION


Using Smart Data to Cut Your Energy and HVAC Maintenance Costs Across Multiple Locations

The advent of IT systems, networking, and technology has revolutionized many aspects of managing operations across multiple locations or buildings, from resource and revenue management, to security. Until now, however, energy management is one major area of multi-location operations which has not been adequately addressed: Many facility management professionals still do not have the tools or the data they need to effectively manage and reduce costs across facilities, some of which may be spread over a diverse geographic area with a variety of climates.

Moreover, facility managers have also been forced to bear high annual repair and maintenance costs on the hundreds—or thousands—of individual HVAC systems that generate the largest share of the energy costs in their operations. Here, the lack of IT integration forces facility managers to cope with maintaining a geographically dispersed, multi-million dollar portfolio of “dumb” HVAC systems, wasting energy through inefficient operation, with a sizable number of these units “running to failure” each year. The result is unnecessarily high annual repair and replacement costs.

But today, energy management systems are helping operators implement intelligent control across the entire range of their facilities. Utilizing the power and immediacy of smart data, operators or facility management professionals can monitor, measure, manage, and control energy consumption and HVAC system conditions for their entire operation from a central location, giving them unprecedented insight into their total energy consumption, and a solid framework for driving additional savings at every location.

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Intelligent Efficiency: Helping Transform “Dumb” Energy Assets Into a Single, Smart and Highly Efficient System for Total Energy Optimization

Multi-facility operators face rising cost pressures on all fronts, and rising energy costs at the facility level are a significant overhead cost, especially when operating multiple locations in different geographic locations.

A major problem for facility managers responsible for several—or several hundred—locations is the inability to directly measure, monitor, and control the energy usage for each and every location, and the means to do this efficiently from a central location.

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Without any organizing system or control, the default condition is that each building in a multi-location operation has its own thermostat control, which can be set by any employee to any temperature. On a winter day, an employee can dial the thermostat up, and forget to dial it back down at closing, or lower the A/C temperature setting during the summer and keep it there overnight.

Under these conditions, facility managers have no control of their equipment, and worse yet, no data to help them understand and reduce their energy costs.

Even when basic energy-saving solutions are put in place, such as programmable thermostats, there can be several potential problems that are multiplied by the number of locations involved. For example, without additional temperature monitoring and continuous monitoring and profiling of the building’s HVAC system, it is not possible for programmable thermostats installed on a building-by-building basis to be configured for each location’s temperature fluctuations, weather conditions, and HVAC system. Without the ability to link temperature control to external conditions or HVAC system specifications, and with no ability to centrally control energy use, the facility manager has little meaningful oversight or control over energy use in any location.

HVAC Systems: Dumb and Designed for Costly “Run to Failure” Breakdowns

Another, less noticeable aspect of energy management for multi-location operators is the condition of the large base of HVAC systems under their management and repair cost responsibility. Rooftop and ground-mounted HVAC units are inherently “dumb,” in that they have no built-in intelligent monitoring features. HVAC systems also operate on a “run-to-failure” basis, which enables small problems, such as refrigerant leaks in air conditioning compressors, to become worse over time. As these systems degrade without detection, they cost as much as 15% more to run because they use more energy to achieve the set temperature. As these degraded systems continue to operate, their performance continues to deteriorate, and they will

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According to the U.S. Department of Energy, heating, cooling, and ventilation (HVAC) accounts for 48% of all building energy use


often fail without warning. Eventually, HVAC breakdowns occur—often requiring an expensive compressor replacement—which could have been prevented by advance warning and corrected by an inexpensive, pre-emptive repair at a small fraction of the run-to-failure repair cost. According to leading HVAC system supplier Lennox Industries, the average cost for replacing each of the two compressors in a typical 7.5-ton rooftop HVAC unit is $1,200 each.

Multiply each of these run-to-failure situations over dozens, hundreds, or thousands of individual locations, geographic areas, and climate zones, and it becomes clear that the potential for uncontrolled energy expenses and major HVAC equipment repair costs add up to a significant and nearly uncontrollable expense for multi-location operators.

Current Piecemeal Energy Management Approaches: Helpful, But Do Not Address the Total Solution Needed

Currently-available solutions for controlling energy costs, such as programmable thermostats, or Internet-linked thermostats, can help operators partially control their energy costs, by helping facility managers control temperature settings in each location. And on the HVAC equipment side, preventive maintenance programs can detect problems in some units before they become more expensive repairs.

Both existing approaches, however, fall well short of realizing the full potential savings and efficiency available from a true energy management system. For example, programmable thermostats can dial heat and cooling up and down on set schedules, but without an ongoing record of external temperature conditions and system performance for each location, the facility manager does not have the information required to optimize energy efficiency for each location.

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Programmable thermostats and preventive maintenance programs are inadequate approaches to efficient energy use in multi-location operations


Wireless Internet thermostats provide centralized control, but have been proven by recent hacking incidents to be an IT security risk. Also, because they do not integrate HVAC system operations to provide facility managers with a more unified view of their operation’s energy usage, they do not provide multi-location operators with the full picture of their energy use. And without a means of storing and measuring ongoing heating/cooling use and HVAC performance and providing this information into an actionable, centralized system, they do not offer a solution that can help the facility manager optimize their energy savings for each location, across their entire operation.

On the HVAC equipment side, preventive maintenance programs are a high, fixed yearly cost for every location, because they are required regardless of whether or not the equipment at each location requires service. Moreover, once or even twice-yearly maintenance schedules cannot provide early detection of all potential expensive equipment failures, since these failures do not conform to preventive maintenance time lines and often occur without warning.

So clearly, the overall problem of optimizing energy savings and system management for multi-location operators exists. There are different approaches to solving the problem, but each of these are only piecemeal fixes that do not give multi-location operators the tools and insight they need to fully address the need for an all-encompassing approach to the problem of energy use and optimization.

How to Use Smart Data to Measure, Control, and Monitor Energy and Energy Equipment Maintenance Costs Across Multiple Facilities

Intelligent energy management systems solve the problems of inefficient energy use and uncontrolled HVAC equipment maintenance costs. Operators can now use a single system to remotely control and monitor energy use, HVAC system health, and capture relevant data.

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Energy management systems utilize secure, remotely controllable networked thermostats, networked indoor and outdoor environmental sensors, and networked HVAC sensor arrays to continuously monitor each location’s temperature, energy usage, and HVAC equipment.

You can now consolidate all the critical components of your operation’s energy consumption, including:

1) Individual building temperature control;

2) Real-time energy data collection, profiling, and analysis;

3) Continuous HVAC equipment monitoring

Energy Management System Key Elements

Individual Building Temperature Setpoint Control: Efficient, Real-Time Energy Control, Monitoring, and Measurement

Since HVAC systems and configurations vary from one location or building type to another, this means that each location is likely to use its own “default” thermostat control.

Our experience has shown that many in-place thermostats at individual buildings may be inaccurate or defective in operation; even when programmable thermostats are used, they may not be set correctly to account for changing needs throughout the day or external weather conditions, or they may not be programmed at all.

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Energy Management Systems give operators 360° insight for maximum energy efficiency and cost savings

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Operators can upgrade their inconsistent and unreliable base of thermostat controls with precise, networked thermostats whose setpoints can be precisely programmed from your central location for each building. These thermostat controls are also linked to an array of indoor and outdoor sensors that, combined with intelligent data collection and profiling, help determine each location’s most efficient and economical temperature settings.

The energy management system collects and communicates real-time temperature and HVAC system performance data, measured against each location’s outside temperature, local weather conditions, humidity, and cloud cover conditions. All of this data is collected and logged on a real-time basis, creating an ongoing profile of each location’s indoor and outside environmental conditions, energy use and continuous HVAC system performance. This data, combined with the analysis and reporting features of the system, gives you unprecedented insight into each building’s energy usage, areas of inefficiency, and corrective courses of action.

Most importantly, an energy use profile, created for each building, helps you easily create an optimized setpoint program to maximize energy savings at each location.

Real-Time Energy Data Collection, Profiling, and Analysis: Intelligent HVAC Monitoring for Building-by-Building Energy Savings Optimization

Highly accurate, remotely-controlled, and secure networked thermostats installed in each location continuously gather temperature and weather data for transmission back to the energy management system, and are connected to each building’s HVAC system.

Set and optimize temperature setpoints for every location to maximize energy savings

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For every building, these remotely-controlled thermostats operate over a secure, wired network, transmitting real-time temperature data back to your centralized location, where it is processed and displayed in your system’s monitoring dashboard.

Centralized, real-time monitoring of HVAC energy utilization for every location gives you the ability to precisely measure each building’s ongoing energy utilization, as this relevant location, temperature, and HVAC performance information is continuously stored in your system’s database. Accessed from a single on-screen dashboard, real-time energy data logging and analysis helps you track energy usage, and compare each building’s energy efficiency to the average energy performance for all locations.

Each building’s local temperature and external weather conditions are also tracked and stored in the system, so that variations in energy consumption can be tracked and measured against the impact of extremes in local hot or cold temperature fluctuations to optimize system performance and efficiency even under adverse weather conditions.

With centralized monitoring, you can immediately know when a location’s energy consumption deviates from its own average usage conditions, from those of nearby locations, and from the averages of all locations. Once alerted, you can then take immediate action to find the source of this excess energy consumption and correct the problem.

Facility operators who utilize real-time temperature control and monitoring have reported significant energy savings up to 25% by optimizing energy utilization in every one of their locations.

Monitor and optimize each building’s energy usage, based on time of day and local weather conditions

Facility operators report overall energy savings of up to 25% using energy management systems

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Continuous HVAC Equipment Monitoring: Prevent Expensive Breakdowns and Maximize HVAC System Efficiency

To address a critically overlooked area when managing distributed locations for optimal energy savings and efficiency, an important element of any energy management system is its HVAC equipment monitoring component.

HVAC equipment monitoring plays an important role in contributing to overall energy efficiency: Performance of an HVAC unit at a building degrades, for example, when a system refrigerant leak causes a compressor to overheat forcing other HVAC units to work harder to compensate for the loss of power from the weaker unit, increasing system load and total energy consumption. Most importantly, since HVAC systems are inherently “dumb” and provide no warning of impending failure, a refrigerant leak or other problem in a defective HVAC unit will eventually cause the compressor to fail, leading to a $1,500-$2,000 repair cost when each failure occurs.

Based on our HVAC equipment monitoring experience, approximately 10% of all HVAC units in multi-location operations operate below their optimal level of performance at any given time, and a high number of these units are likely to fail within a short time period.

Since each building may have one or more HVAC units, this can add up to hundreds or thousands of HVAC units for a large operation—and a large capital repair cost liability, as sizable numbers of these units run to failure in any given year, causing repair expenses in the thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for a single operation.

HVAC units operating below their normal performance levels increase energy costs and lead to expensive and disruptive repairs

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How to Eliminate “Run to Failure”

Real-time HVAC equipment monitoring and diagnostics for each HVAC system at every location are integrated into the overall energy management system.

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With HVAC equipment monitoring, temperature sensors are installed at the inlet and outlet supply ducts for each unit, and each of these temperatures is monitored and temperature data from each unit is continuously monitored and logged to the energy system database. The equipment monitoring feature of the energy management system develops a profile of each HVAC unit, and taking into account other variables, such as use of an economizer feature, or extreme weather changes, develops an operating performance profile for each and every individual HVAC unit in the entire base of HVAC units, now networked to the energy management system. Units operating at below-average performance levels, based on predetermined values, can now be flagged for a preventive maintenance call (at a cost of around $200). If no monitoring was in place, there would be no alternative for an HVAC unit other than “running to failure,” leading to a much more expensive repair cost (up to $2,000 or more per unit).

Converting “Dumb” HVAC Systems Into a Well-Managed, Smart HVAC Network

Smart HVAC monitoring enables facility managers to treat their entire operation’s HVAC systems as a unified “portfolio” of intelligent units now accessible from a single dashboard and control point. Within an energy management system, HVAC monitoring features automated reporting tools that provide real-time reporting on the condition of every HVAC unit in every location. This enables evaluation and classification of every unit’s operating performance, with automated e-mail or phone text communications of needed repair tasks transmitted to local HVAC technicians.

With HVAC monitoring, the age, condition, and repair record, warranty status, and operating performance of every HVAC unit in a multi-facility operation is also readily accessible in the energy management system database, so that when repairs are needed, management can determine whether it is more economical to replace a faulty unit rather than repair it, based on its age and condition.


High, Line-Item HVAC Repair Costs Now Replaced by Substantially Lower Pre-emptive Repairs

Before the development of energy management systems, the only option available to operators was to treat their HVAC repair and maintenance as a single, major line item in their annual budget. But now that HVAC monitoring features make pre-emptive repair possible, repair and maintenance costs can be substantially reduced.

So instead of viewing maintenance and repair expense as a given line item year after year, real-time HVAC monitoring with an energy management system enables facility operators to prevent HVAC breakdowns before they occur, cutting annual repair expense to a fraction of its former cost.

Once Implemented, Energy Management Systems Provide Insight for Further Energy Cost Savings and Efficiency

The savings and greater efficiency of implementing an energy management system are significant benefits, but the most important benefit is insight: Once implemented, the benefit gained from using smart data generated from the energy management system gives management a total view of their entire operation’s energy utilization, unit-by-unit operating characteristics, surrounding environmental conditions, and detailed performance profiles for each location over time.

With access to this total picture of energy utilization, operators are now able to engage in additional energy cost savings programs, backed by accurate data and analysis, to further maximize energy savings and operating efficiency throughout

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Smart HVAC monitoring enables facility managers to treat their entire operation’s HVAC systems as a unified “portfolio” of intelligent units accessible from a single dashboard within their energy management system


the operation. For example, access to detailed, historical temperature data for each and every location enables facility managers to determine which of their buildings will benefit by further energy optimization measures, such as LED lighting installations, additional insulation, heat-blocking window film, and many other possible savings improvements.

How to Implement an Energy Management System in Your Operation

Increasingly, the compelling benefits of an energy management system are making implementation a high priority in many multi-location operations. Here are some questions to ask when evaluating offerings from various energy management system vendors:

• Does your system allow for centralized data logging, analysis, and control for each location? Examine what data is collected, how often, and how accessible is it to you for reporting and management decision-making purposes;

• What are the reporting and analysis capabilities of your system? A true energy management system not only compiles data, but provides you with the reporting formats and analysis capabilities you need to make intelligent, well-informed decisions on energy usage for each location; all data collected must also be provided in the reporting formats required to give you meaningful and relevant insight into your operation’s overall energy usage, expense, savings, and efficiency options;

• Does your system include HVAC system monitoring, and how is it integrated into the overall energy management system? HVAC “health monitoring” is a critical part of any energy management system, and data collected on the performance of your operation’s HVAC systems must be integrated into your system’s overall energy data profiling and analysis capabilities.

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Smart Data provided by the energy management system gives operators the insight they need to pursue even greater energy savings and efficiency

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Pilot Testing is the Key to Implementing a Successful Energy Management System for Multi-Facility Operations

Based on our experience, the key to successful implementation of any energy management system is to conduct a limited pilot test of the system at a small number of locations. The pilot test allows the facilities management team to compile the necessary data required to determine the operating efficiency and potential savings yield from the system.

Over the few months required for the pilot test, both management and the vendor team will gain a better understanding of the system’s performance, and the configuration required for rolling out the energy management system to other locations. Careful pilot testing and analysis ensures a smoother implementation and provides validation of efficiency, savings, payback and ROI results, enabling operators to reap the maximum rewards from their operation’s energy management system.


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Energy Management Systems for Multi-Facility Operations: Your Road Map to Energy Savings and Optimization © 2015 Bay Controls, Inc. All rights reserved.

About BAYweb BAYweb is a division of Bay Controls, an energy solutions company that provides products and services to a broad range of industrial, commercial, and government customers.

Founded in 1983, Bay Controls has provided sophisticated energy-saving solutions to industrial customers in 70 countries. The company’s solutions deliver over 1.8 Terawatt-hours (1,800,000 megawatt-hours) of energy savings annually; nearly twice the combined output of all of the solar cells in the United States every year.

In 2009, BAYweb was launched to leverage the company’s industrial-sector expertise and technology into the BAYweb line of products and the BAYweb cloud-based system. This brought light and multi-location commercial and institutional facilities a new ability to reduce their energy and operating costs.

BAYweb energy management products are in use at thousands of facilities throughout North America.

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