Customer Video Case Studies

This document discusses the financial implications of using submetering as a means of energy cost management and reduction in federal facilities or commercial leased buildings. It introduces the concept of submetering and its “value added” applications, and provides key metrics needed for making a business case for submetering efforts as part of new construction or retrofit projects, focusing at the building and system levels. 

This report illustrates how energy management information systems (EMIS) can enable federal agencies to improve energy performance, reduce costs, and meet energy goals. The guide discusses how to identify and implement needed EMIS functions and capabilities, covering the entire EMIS life cycle including system design, procurement, implementation, and ongoing maintenance.

This paper analyzes the effect of the depth of submetering (i.e., from whole-building level to system level to equipment level and further to sensor level) on the energy savings that can be achieved in energy analytics or energy information system (EIS) implementations. An EIS is defined as a combination of software and hardware systems that gather energy-related data, feed it into an analytics engine, and present building operators with analyses that allow them to reduce energy consumption. 

Panoramic Power uses IoT sensor technology to help customers understand energy consumption, collecting eight billion data points per month across 800 sites in 30 countries. With Tableau, Panoramic’s customers can dig deeper into their data, like The North Face who saved $10,500 through early detection into HVAC systems or Strauss Group who saved $250,000 a year by correlating weather data with energy use. Automated reporting allows customers to quickly understand key metrics, without needing to rely on Panoramic’s professional services team—freeing up 9 hours per week that Panoramic can now dedicate to customer care.

Included are 10 different lessons Legrand has learned through submetering. These lessons can be applied directly to other manufacturing, distribution, and office facilities, independent of whether or not the facilities have submeters in place or are contemplating submeters as a means for energy management. 

Electrical submetering is an energy management method of installing meters to measure electrical consumption at a more granular level than that of the utility meter. Utility meters measure the building-level consumption, while submeters can measure at the system- and/or device-level. Saint-Gobain North America’s (SGNA) Sustainability Network has developed a partnership with submetering provider Centrica Business Solutions, who sells low-cost, wireless submeters that clip on to an electrical wire. 

One of the most vexing issues facing energy managers and policymakers is the "split incentive," in which building owners and tenants can not effectively distribute the rewards of energy conservation efforts. This is frequently due to communal utility usage via master meters wherein tenant usage is aggregated by design. Submetering helps to overcome the "split incentive" by ensuring that tenants can measure their individual energy and water consumption. A good policy enables greater and more targeted access to information while fairly and clearly allocating any associated costs for submetering to responsible parties.

It is well established that measuring and monitoring building energy use (otherwise known as benchmarking) provides critical information to help commercial and retail landlords and tenants save energy, lower operational and maintenance costs, and keep people healthy and comfortable. Access to utility data plays a key role in monitoring and improving the performance of buildings and spaces, but in many locations where a tenant has a full-service or a gross lease, and actual energy consumption is not provided, tenants have no incentive to pay attention to how much energy they consume.