Webinar Q&A: Using Energy Competitions to Reduce Building Energy Use

Last week’s webinar on energy competitions generated more questions than we were able to answer during the live Q&A session, so as promised we are answering all the questions left on the table here on our blog.  You can download the presentation slides (.pdf) or sign up to view and listen to the recording: Using Energy Competitions to Reduce Building Energy Use.

Q: Do you have any feedback on building occupants and their energy-related behaviours once a competition closes? Do they experience a proverbial competition ‘hangover’ and revert to their original energy practices?

A: Extreme measures used to conserve energy like extremely low lighting levels, or turning off hot water or the coffee maker are usually abandoned once the competition ends.  However, competitions often reveal sustainable practices that can continue year round; for example after a competition we have seen our clients turn off under-used refrigerators, remove lights in areas that don’t require them, naturally ventilate a server room by opening a door, and turn off unused computers and lights.

Q: Of the 9 competitions that Pulse was involved in, what was the average savings over the long run?

A: We saw savings up to 7% over a 6 month period, but many of the competitions completed just recently, so we don’t have average, long term savings for all of them.  Some of the buildings that did well during the competition due to extreme actions that were not sustainable over the long term, and therefore they experienced little to no persistent savings. Read the rest of this entry »

April suggested reading

Here are two interesting articles on energy conservation and  that we found last month.

The first one was posted in mid-February on CNET, but perhaps you missed it then just like we did.  It’s an update of an on-going study conducted by Oklahoma Gas & Electric in conjunction with the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory.  The study results so far indicate that people will significantly conserve electricity during peak demand if given price incentives and tools to modify usage: http://cnet.co/gY1HcJ.  The article states that:

“The first collection of data, taken from June through September, found that on average customers who were offered peak pricing, but no smart tools, reduced electricity use during peak periods by 33 percent. Customers using smart thermostats and offered peak pricing, reduced electricity use during peak times by as much as 57 percent.”

While this study is tracking the usage patterns of small businesses and residences, the underlying hypothesis that more control over energy usage will reduce consumption also appears to apply to larger commercial buildings, as evidenced by the results of an occupant engagement experiment that we helped one of our clients conduct. Read the rest of this entry »

Tips for Energy Managers in New Roles

During last week’s webinar entitled “Energy Managers: Carve Out Your Niche“, Pulse Energy’s Craig Handley used examples from his experience as RMIT University’s Energy Manager to illustrate the challenges that energy managers often face when they enter a newly created role in an organization.  Craig offered advice for energy managers on earning respect and credibility in an organization, tips on getting energy management plans approved by executives, and suggestions on how to embed energy management into organizational culture.  In addition, there was one more piece of advice that Craig prepared but did not have time to present at the webinar that we can present on this blog: how to keep things simple. Read the rest of this entry »

5 Energy Saving Tips for HVAC Controls

We recently hosted a webinar on energy saving tips for HVAC controls, presented by our very own BAS expert, James Smith.  The tips that James presented were basic maintenance and optimization procedures that save energy and are relatively easy to implement, but are often ignored and left undone.

The 5 tips included mechanical maintenance and controls optimization procedures that can be performed by in-house staff or by outside contractors:

1. Inspect Air Handling Unit (AHU) heating and cooling valves annually, to prevent simultaneous heating and cooling.
2. Inspect, clean, and lubricate mixing dampers seasonally to protect against simultaneous heating and cooling, frozen coils, and incorrect building pressure.
3. Calculate fresh air requirements automatically to protect against excess heating or cooling.
4. Calculate demand from zone devices to set the AHU temperature to eliminate over-cooling.
5. Reset boiler and chiller temperatures based on AHU valve positions to protect against excessively hot or cold water and to prevent unnecessary machine cycling.

James also explained why the effects of these energy wasting problems that these tips are meant to fix can be hidden and not easily detected without an inspection or other direct action.  Anyone who works with HVAC and BAS systems, as well as anyone who wants an interesting insight into the mechanical workings of their building will likely find this presentation interesting; check out the webinar recording for more details on each tip as well as a bonus tip.

We concluded the webinar with a Q&A session, and as is often the case we had a very engaged audience asking us lots of questions that we couldn’t answer in the time allotted.  James’ responses to most of the unanswered questions are below and we encourage you to join the discussion with new or follow-up questions or comments by adding a comment to this blog posting:

Read the rest of this entry »

Q&A Session from our “How to Optimize DDC Systems to Save Energy in Hospitals” webinar

Nancy Myers, Energy Manager for the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) joined us for a webinar on saving energy in hospitals through DDC system optimization.  Nancy presented her team’s plan and process for investigating and optimizing DDC systems in their hospitals, along with examples of the energy wasting anomalies that they discovered.

Once again, the Q&A session was just as interesting as the presentation itself, and you can read it right here:

Q: How often do you calibrate your temperature sensors and outside air sensors?

Nancy Myers- When we do our end to ends check twice a year we look at all the zones, if a sensor is out more than 2 degrees then we replace it. A sensor is 20 bucks, cheap. We look at outside air often because the DX cooling is often on when it’s not hot out. We don’t change outside air sensors that often, maybe every 5 years. Its’ very important to understand where they’re located in the building because they are often installed at odd or inappropriate locations. Read the rest of this entry »

Pulse Energy office uses new competition module and reduces energy use by 8.8%

Real-Time Energy Use Data Arrives at Three BC Hydro Locations, Two More Sites in Progress

Source: Keeping Current. BC Hydro News Stories for the week of August 11, 2010

Lead by Example unveiled three interactive energy use displays at pilot sites in the Lower Mainland last week and will install two more displays at Peace Canyon Generating Station and Lower Mainland South (LMS) later this month.

The displays show information on real-time electricity use and relevant conservation messages for each location. Pilot displays are in the main lobbies at Dunsmuir and Edmonds and the lunchroom at Powertech. The other two will soon be available in the lunchroom at Peace Canyon Generating Station and in the main hallway at LMS.

David Procter, Manager, Lead by Example, tries out the new energy use display in the Edmonds lobby

The pilot is designed to engage, educate, motivate and empower BC Hydro staff and building occupants to take action and reduce energy use in their buildings. The real-time data raises awareness of the electricity consumed within the facilities, while the interactive component shows why this consumption can change over time.  Through Lead by Example, BC Hydro is demonstrating how staff and building occupants can influence consumption and encouraging engagement in other conservation efforts.

“We want to encourage employees to change their energy use behaviours,” said Ann McDowall, Energy Manager, Transmission & Distribution, Project Manager for the interacive energy use displays. “Conservation happens one decision at a time. By showing employees how their habits impact the consumption in their building, we hope to challenge them to make decisions that will improve their office’s energy conservation efforts.”

The displays will change over time and include everything from basic conservation tips to current campaigns and programs employees can participate in.

“The energy use displays will allow employees to see the impact they can have when they participate in various energy saving efforts,” added Vinson Lee, who develops many of the Green Team campaigns. “The energy use display will show, through charts and graphs, when electricity consumption is at its greatest, when it’s at its lowest, where the opportunities are to use less and what they can do about it. When employees do use less, the display will reflect that.”

Members of the energy use display project team

The public will also be able to use the displays at some sites.

Pulse Energy Inc. is providing the display’s real-time electricity use information. Additional information is available to facility managers to assist them in managing the facilities efficiently and identifying potential energy saving projects. Orca Experience supplied the interactive displays and adapted material for use with the displays.

A Discussion on Occupant Engagement, Part III

(This is the third post in a three-part series, see parts I and II below)

Q: Is there a way to identify the origin of the load through the dashboard?

APS: This all depends on the resolution of the monitoring. For the lighting retrofit, we could isolate it to the specific floors only, not individual offices. However, our engineer looked into purchasing wireless monitoring technologies that could measure each office space. This could be moved around and integrated into Pulse. We haven’t implemented anything like that yet. Frankly, it may not be advantageous to scrutinize consumption to that level. Feels too much like “Big Brother” watching your consumption.

Q: Are there provisions for inputting and analyzing facilities which do not have digital meters?

APS: We are starting a new project with schools in First Nation (Aboriginal) communities with electronic monitoring to come up with some indicators around per-student and per-square-meter consumption.  Once we have established some benchmarks, we plan to design a survey that non-monitored schools can use to identify saving opportunities, maybe using their power bill as the key indicator.  All in all, it is better to monitor. Read the rest of this entry »

A Discussion on Occupant Engagement, Part II

(This is the second post in a three-part series, see part I below)

Q: Have you calculated a $ per KWh cost of the efficiency/savings vs the cost of the Pulse software?

APS: Not yet, but I would like to do so. It would be important to measure the persistence of savings first. This is something we will do in our second campaign. After that, we could come up with an estimate of the 52 week average energy savings percentage (over and above the pre-Pulse/campaign baseline) and apply that against the total electricity bill. In 2008 (pre-Pulse), our Ministry (about half of the building, plus other buildings) consumed 4828 GJ of electricity. In 2009 (post-Pulse), that figure was 3136 GJ, a saving of nearly 1700 GJ or 472 MWh. However, we need to normalize this figure to remove other buildings, different staffing levels, etc, so I don’t want to attribute all the savings to the retrofit / Pulse / campaign.

Q: How much money was spent on installing light switches, dimmers and occupancy sensors, and implementing Pulse’s monitoring software/hardware? And how does this amount compare with electricity cost savings?

APS: The lighting retrofit was approximately $100,000. We have a declining block rate structure that puts all savings (unfortunately) in Step 2, making it very challenging for any lighting retrofit to be cost-effective.  In addition, the pre-existing lights are T12 with electronic ballasts.  Replacing magnetic ballasts is far more cost-effective. The monitoring hardware and Pulse software was a small fraction of the cost of that overall bill. The reason why we did this was to demonstrate leadership, albeit the only way to transform the market is to fix the rate signal with an inclining block rate structure so that such investments become cost-effective. Read the rest of this entry »

A Discussion on Occupant Engagement, Part I

On April 28th Pulse Energy hosted a webinar on engaging buildings occupants in energy conservation.  Andrew Pape-Salmon, Director, Energy Efficiency Branch, BC Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, was gracious enough to take a break from his sabbatical and speak about the occupant engagement measures applied in part of his 150,000 sq ft office building that achieved a 12% savings on energy.  The 70+ webinar attendees responded very well to the moderator`s challenge to ask Andrew a lot of tough questions, and at the end of the webinar we were left with dozens of great questions that we simply did not have time to answer.  Therefore, we would like to use the questions as the seeds to a potentially very interesting discussion on occupant engagement here on our blog.  Andrew and his colleague Brooke McMurchy, who led the occupant engagement initiative at the Jack Davis building, have replied with their answers to the questions asked at the webinar; please add your comments by clicking the “comments” link below the title at the top. Read the rest of this entry »