Who can benefit from access to energy data in your company?

Gone are the days when accounting teams were the only ones hunting down utility bills in order to pay them. The world of energy management software is becoming increasingly data driven, and the best source for that data comes from your utility provider. Now, more than ever before, a growing list of departments within a single organization are asking for utility data for sustainability reporting, energy consumption benchmarking, investor relations, and more.

Urjanet aligned an expert panel to discuss how industries have seen the need for energy data to span across multiple departments within the enterprise, and how these end users are applying the data to achieve their departmental and organizational goals.

THE PANEL:

Kevin Sok Manager of Engineering & Sustainability

Brian Glazebrook Senior Global Sustainability Manager

Jason Roeder Director of Energy Products & Services

Alisdair McDougall Industry Research Analyst

Chris Happ CEO

Jerome Montrone Senior Vice President

Erik Becker Vice President

RESOURCES

EXPERT Q&A:

THE NEW CONSUMERS OF UTILITY DATA

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Who in an organization can benefit from energy data?

VERDANTIX: Different positions within an organization are beginning to seek and use energy data. A global survey Verdantix conducted, in which we spoke to the most senior person responsible for energy within an organization, revealed that only 77% of those respondents actually had the term “energy” in their titles.

Today, energy data is relevant to property managers, facilities directors, operations directors, CSR managers, sustainability strategists, accountants, and chief engineers. Even investors and other stakeholders are beginning to seek energy data to analyze a company’s expected costs and evaluate whether or not to financially support the company.

The fact that a variety of organizations are parcelling energy management off onto different roles shows how applicable energy data is to different departments in a business. Energy data is essential to the strategic and tactical business objectives within an organization.

URJANET: We actually think about four different personas within the commercial organization that find utility data useful to their roles and responsibilities.

One is accounting. Accountants strive to build an efficient accounting operation and reduce late fees and service disruptions.

Those in energy procurement also use energy data to find more cost effective options.

Additionally, energy and facilities managers look for ways to improve energy efficiency and cut back on consumption.

Finally, sustainability managers search for utility data to measure progress against various environmental goals they have placed around energy and carbon emissions.

In the old days, only accounting cared about utility billing data. Why is the demand for data increasing across other organizational functions. What are the drivers?

VERDANTIX: In the past, utility data was only

important to accounting because they needed the information to avoid late fees. Before, people only saw energy as an inescapable expense. Not many people evaluated the size of their energy spending. They only viewed the late fee as something they could control.

Through sustainability, people have come to the understanding that in addition to avoiding late fees, energy costs can be minimized by reducing consumption. More and more executives are trying to find ways to maximize business efficiency and cut down on unnecessary spending. They have unlocked an opportunity for improvement with their energy usage.

Imagine looking around your office and seeing 20% of your staff doing nothing all day. You would be quick to get rid of that 20% or put them to work elsewhere. The same goes for energy. If you see that one of your manufacturing plants is consuming a much higher amount than the rest, you figure out the problem and reduce energy waste.

Now that energy data is available in a more user-friendly form, companies have increased visibility into their energy use and can spot areas that are underperforming. With more transparency, managers can better optimize their energy strategies.

What is prompting executives to finally take sustainability seriously?

NETAPP: A combination of factors, including external pressure from investors, are causing executives to care about sustainability. NetApp has investors based in Europe where there is much more concern around energy used in data centers and to manufacture products. We also have customers who are requesting to buy from very sustainable, reputable companies.

There are also additional market opportunities that come along with having a solid sustainability strategy in place. ENERGY STAR actually has a new rate for data storage. Because we are the largest

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“Energy data is essential to the strategic and tactical business objectives within an organization.”

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data storage provider to the U.S. public sector, meeting those energy efficiency requirements in data storage is crucial for us to maintain our position in the market. Employees are also very interested in sustainability and want to work for a company that cares about its environmental and social impacts, especially those in the technology industries in Silicon Valley. Sustainability is becoming increasingly important to college graduates that we want to hire into the company.

What are the best sustainability metrics to track using utility data?

BEACON CAPITAL: I would recommend tracking as many as you can, especially those related to LEED points. We assess the building environment for our tenants, cost savings, and the building’s environmental impact. Therefore, we use economic data, energy data, indoor environmental air quality data, and more.

GOBY: I would say the key sustainability metrics most people want to track are energy, water, and waste. They are looking at what goes into and out of a building and how much power a building uses. These factors are the basis for the carbon footprint calculation.

How is utility data used for corporate sustainability reporting?

NETAPP: Utility data provides a way to link issues that could be considered somewhat intangible, such as climate change, to costs. This connection helps NetApp with the process of identifying if there is something we need to address more comprehensively. While we are not a major manufacturer using tons of electricity, energy is still a significant annual expenditure for us.

Additionally, when we look at internal investments and our ROI calculations related to sustainability, we can confidently talk about the cost aspects of a project and what value it has. Therefore, we can show how focusing on aspects of sustainability, like renewable energy projects and the reduction of energy consumption, adds value to our company in the long term. It’s important for us to have good data so that we can clearly defend our stance on a plan or strategy.

Do you have tips for getting cooperation from

utility companies or cost-effective whole building utility monitoring equipment?

POWERHOUSE DYNAMICS: Getting utilities to cooperate can be tough from time to time but services like Urjanet and initiatives like Green button are making it easier. Interval data at the building level is actually fairly readily available. Many vendors can provide that information to you through the cloud at a reasonable price. Interval data enables you to understand your peak loads and demand charges. It gives you a lot of rich information that you can then apply to benchmarking consumption and usage patterns.

What are specific problems that can be solved by using energy data?

POWERHOUSE DYNAMICS: A large number of organizations we work with operate on very thin margins. Every bit of cost that they can more effectively control is very important to them. Optimized cost control can be brought to life and realized through using energy data.

How do you ensure energy data is accessible to all end users?

COX ENTERPRISES: Centralizing data access can be difficult because there are many locations and data source owners that do their own entry. Our first step is to collect all of our energy data, which is a hefty task in and of itself. We have tried different manual collection processes, but discovered that automating the energy data feed has helped us tremendously in terms of how we manage and evaluate our data from over 40,000 accounts.

Our next step is to centralize the energy data into one dashboard that allows different users within Cox to access the information. Having this data formatted in one consistent way across the organization allows for increased integration among our departments. Aggregating the data in one place also improves efficiency and in turn, our decision-making. Thus, we make easily acquiring data a

“There are also additional market opportunities that come along with having a solid sustainability strategy in place.”

Can you provide an example of an operational change resulting from energy data?

POWERHOUSE DYNAMICS: As a chain operator, you may have hundreds of thousands of units across your locations. Being able to understand just how much it costs to operate each unit is extremely valuable. We have seen restaurant chains make operational changes because of discoveries they made after data aggregation. For example, one restaurant we worked with uses energy intensive equipment for heating different types of food. This equipment runs for many hours a day and typically costs a few thousand dollars a year to operate. Energy data helped this company understand that the equipment did not need to be running on its highest level all day. They were able to use this information to train workers on when to make adjustments to the equipments’ settings, resulting in significant savings.

What energy benchmarking reports are currently available?

VERDANTIX: We see a large variety in the types of reporting tools that are currently available. At the portfolio level, you can input all of your sites onto a map and use green, red, or amber pins to compare energy usage. You can conduct a test to distinguish the top and bottom performing sites. At the site level, you can set alerts and analyze interval data to keep track of any energy spikes.

At the project level, you may be able to log into energy management dashboards and websites to see where others have implemented different projects and what results they have achieved. You can even look at reports that overlay carbon reduction data from sustainability and financial perspectives.

What factors do you incorporate into energy consumption modeling and cost forecasting?

COX ENTERPRISES: In most cases, at Cox Enterprises, we start out with historical data, but also incorporate market indicators and variables to represent regional economics. We also need

to understand the utilities that service our markets because of the diversity of pricing structures within different locations. Additionally, we look at factors that might directly influence our load, such as weather.

How can I get minute-by-minute data on my equipment, so facilities managers can make decisions in real time?

POWERHOUSE DYNAMICS: The acquisition of minute-by-minute data combines the Internet and a smart grid layer. There needs to be some installation of hardware to supply that data, but in many cases it is proving to be invaluable. For example, facilities teams are typically required to maintain HVAC equipment and need minute-by-minute data in order to detect very specific, time-sensitive problems. Some companies collect 15-minute data, which provides fewer details than minute-by-minute data, but often avoids the hardware costs. I foresee the collection of data with short intervals continuing as we go into the future.

Why is automating energy data important? How can it reduce costs?

COX ENTERPRISES: With Cox’s automated data, we track our energy consumption and compare it to our energy budget. We can better estimate our future costs and plan accordingly with a more accurate picture of how much energy we are using today. There can be different energy usage trends based on who is running the building or site. With the data, we can check for anomalies and utility billing errors, which are actually quite common.

By presenting the full data set collected through automation, you can even negotiate a better utility rate. You can also make sure that you are not on the wrong rates. We profile the entire U.S. and look at where our highest costs are. We then determine how we should approach displacing those high energy costs with energy conservation and distributed generation such as solar, wind, or fuel cell energy. We can even conduct a carbon footprint analysis and develop a template of how to manage our emissions.

With the more accurate data, we can look at our month-to-month and annual consumption values. Different metrics in terms of costs per kilowatt-hour help us make decisions about modifying

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“Aggregating the data in one place also improves efficiency and in turn, our decision-making.”

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loads, changing rates, or installing solar panels on rooftops. That way, we are efficiently reducing costs.

Why did you choose Urjanet’s services?

NETAPP: Customers and investors are starting to ask for much more information about energy and other metrics such as generated waste, water use and air travel, which is the reason we came to Urjanet. Additionally, we report to the Carbon Disclosure Project annually, which requires a lot of data.

Previously, it was very difficult to manage all of this information and our spreadsheets were getting unwieldy. We implemented a SAS platform that allowed us to manage our growing volume of data. This tool makes analyzing the data much easier, but our main challenge had always been the data itself. We do not want to make big decisions based on inaccurate and incomplete data.

Urjanet has given us the ability to pull data directly from our utilities with their portal interface and parses the information into a standard format before delivery. We are able to track the sources and get our data in near real time. The data feeds directly into our platform, so we do not have to worry about a mismatch with the systems. Now, we can spend more time focusing on analyzing the information and looking for opportunities for improvement instead of collecting it.

How accurate is the data that is delivered?

URJANET: With manual data entry, there isn’t a great way to ensure that the data is accurate or complete. Urjanet’s real trick is that we have automated the collection and delivery of utility data. By pulling the data from the utility itself, we are able to ensure that our customers are getting absolutely everything that is on the bill and that the information is accurate. We also include a PDF image of all the bills, so our customers can further validate that the information they receive is correct.