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Successful Insights of Wireless Electricity Measures   September 21, 2015 By Frank Carnevale   It’s been just under a year of using our low-cost device level wireless sensors (Panoramic Power) in various facilities, and I wanted to share the successful insights we’ve gleaned from our experiences. The results are better than we anticipated! On average, we are generating over 10% immediate kWh reduction from simple non-capital intensive measures, and in one case, the awareness of the BAS not accurately presenting units on when they were listed as off, produced an immediate kWh reduction of over 15% from one measure.   As a recap, typical industry practices are to capture existing disparate data points for a facility (such as utility meter data, BAS data), and generate recommendations around the optimization of the HVAC system. Yes. You absolutely will have a finely tweaked HVAC system. This is where SustainCo believes that approach is key, and only assessing 40% of the electrical use, is no solution. We look at 100% of the electrical load, which includes the 6 electrical systems of HVAC (3) and lights, plugs and processes. These 3 additional systems typically account for 60%+ of the demand load by human behaviour, and when you are able to drill down and measure those loads by system (or device) and overlay their electricity costs, you’re able to make better recommendations because you have more data points to fill in the load story of the facility. It’s just common sense that more data inputs will lead to better recommendations. Garbage in, garbage out. SustainCo takes this evidence-based data to drive non-capital intensive measures. Now, you’re caught up. Facility Types SustainCo has designed and/or  installed system level measures in a number of types of facilities and gleaned various insights. Mid-rise commercial; commercial; institutional; industrial; restaurant; school; university; social housing; apartments; condos; car dealership; cold storage facility, retail Here’s what we learned: 1.    SustainCo “approach” leads to lower capital expenditures for maximum energy efficiency Our “approach” leads towards lower capital costs to generate maximum energy efficiency. We generate immediate kWh reductions by focusing on non-capital intensive recommendations first. As an example, typical industry proposal for a controls package in student apartment residences is almost double as expensive as our proposed wireless controls package once we let the evidence-based measures drive recommendations 2.    Wireless is more cost effective than wired A customer ran a bidding process where we were able to demonstrate that the capital cost of the wireless system and installation was roughly ¼ the capital cost of the comparative wired metered solution. By the way, the wired metered solution didn’t include installation of Cat5 cables and required construction. The advancements in Wi-Fi technology specifically, 802.11n/s enables meshing. I can understand why the OEM BAS industry try to minimize the use of wireless; they are trying to protect their monolithic BACnet system that Wi-Fi completely undermines. Imagine that today you can install wireless monitoring and control equipment using 802.11n/s and using an HTML5 website to monitor and control. There is no need for the complicated proprietary equipment in between. You’ll experience more of this in the coming year. 3.    Building automation systems are often embarrassingly wrong Shouldn’t a BAS be accurate in identifying equipment that should be off, but in actuality, is on? Shouldn’t a BAS building vs a non-BAS sister-building have a better energy curve? It’s not lost on the industry that many BAS are overridden by staff, or that these systems are not optimized and not often enough, but the reality is that while a BAS enables the ability to control a number of devices and equipment, who or what should direct it? Shouldn’t the evidence-based data drive the required recommendations and controls and settings, and then you utilize the BAS to execute? If nothing else, after spending significant amount of money on a sophisticated BAS, our wireless monitoring system validates and audits the actual energy use- demand load- so that you can better direct and optimize your system. We’ve seen examples where over 300 fan boxes were listed as off in off-peak hours in a facility, but our sensors proved that they were never going off. Up until someone literally turned off circuits to prove it, the site BAS manager was adamant that they were off. This is common. 4.    Customers are more open to change than their energy management vendors I haven’t been in a meeting yet where a potential customer didn’t ask within minutes into the meeting,  to measure systems in their facility(ies). Their existing energy management advisors don’t like change. The industry still thinks of energy efficiency as tweaking and optimizing HVAC systems, but as we now know, that only accounts for roughly 40% of the electrical load of facilities, and they don’t believe that the other 60% of human behaviour- lights, plugs and processes- can be legitimately affected. We are affecting human behaviour! Customers have never really known the cost of leaving lights on during off peak hours or the impact of starting exhaust fans and other equipment when not needed. Now they do, and when presented with these facts, customers (who pay those bills) appreciate the accuracy and affect change in behaviour. 5.    Customer’s energy managers feel threatened, but they shouldn’t In the cases where prospective customers are more sophisticated managers, we’ve seen some backlash and certainly appreciate that those individuals and BAS teams and utility bills teams feel threatened by our approach. But I would say this. It is completely understandable that these individuals and teams feel that they’re doing the best they can, because they are quite typically making recommendations and reacting to data that only demonstrates either 40% of the bill or the aggregated 100% of the bill with no context. Until recently, there was no cost effective measure to monitor drilled down demand user data. It’s not their fault. But, we’re walking in and can argue that we see potential for between 20% and 30% kWh reduction can certainly make staff feel uneasy. With more data points, staff can make different decisions than previously. There weren’t doing it wrong before; they just didn’t have the data. Now that they can have the data, they can make different decisions, and our own approach is to support them as coaches and advisors and generate recommendations along with them. We can make them champions within their organizations. In examples where staff get their back up and defend their approach and fight the need for these wireless devices, I’ve only seen embarrassment in their outcomes. 6.    Customers will change Human Behaviour when shown evidence-backed data All customers of our wireless measuring system have had recommendations of non-capital intensive human behavioral changes. For example, despite espresso machines being turned off after hours, we know that the steam boilers run around the clock, adding significant unintended demand loads. We know that restaurant owners can easily change their restaurant open process that lead to over 40% of their energy use occurring when they’re not open. For example, staff are instructed to turn on exhaust fans well before required, which then cause make up air and other heating and cooling systems to pick up to maintain temperature, when no revenue is being created. We see that plug loads are running charging equipment in industrial facilities with no on/off coordination. Staff must have competency to be able to change their behaviour once they know the negative impacts of their actions. Items should only be on when they’re intended to be on. 7.    Customers confuse similar energy curves from similar sites as being good Organizations with multiple facilities tend to be more sophisticated at analyzing things like energy curve data and addressing outliers, but the underlying assumption is that the non-outliers are working within some kind of normal energy curve  band, well, because they’re fairly similar curves. This is a reasonable expectation without additional data, but with the disaggregation of the energy curve into the six electrical systems, one can see the energy efficiency opportunities within those similar energy curves, and see that there can still be significant reductions.     Call to Action We will continue to create tremendous insights for the full range of customers. We have enjoyed our strategic partnerships with SeeWind Design and Panoramic Power to bring this solution to market, and we continue to improve and automate our abilities to spit out insights from evidence-based data. Going forward, we’re excited to work with organizations that want to lead their market segment in creating the most energy efficient facilities vs their counterparts. Let’s change human behaviour together! Thank you, Frank Carnevale Thought leader on sustainability, energy efficiency and clean energy [email protected] Twitter @fcarnevale
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Will Municipalities Run With Environmental License? I was lucky enough to have attended the recent Climate Summit of the Americas in Toronto. Beyond the excitement of experiencing the visions of several Premiers and Governors, it was a very powerful and empowering experience. Over the past week, I’ve been trying to process any lessons learned, and here’s what I’ve concluded. It seems odd to me that the sub-national play- the reliance on sub-nationals to take more active roles in designing climate change strategies- has taken this long to arguably take hold in the international community. While I’m not sure what the catalyst to this sub-national role was, it clearly works in the absence of national governments’ leadership. Insert understatement here… Provinces are clearly the jurisdictions to regulate GHGs as they regulate and contract for power generation and generate the GHG caps for industries. In my opinion, the Alberta oil sands were the catalyst for federal government to hem and haw in order to devise ways of protecting its interests of bringing oil to international markets, unhindered. Otherwise, we may have been much further ahead with a federal government quarterbacking the provinces. But no. While BC, Quebec and Ontario are now leading the way in the overall GHG reductions for Canada, we need to look beyond and determine how we get greater reductions and where??? Meeting the current GHG targets is about demonstrating the approach and pathway to generate reductions, but jurisdictions can lead far beyond that. Municipalities account for approximately 85% of all infrastructure in Canada, and while municipalities are creatures of their provinces, municipalities have the abilities to actually generate the GHG reductions in their buildings, their transportation and transit systems, and their green lands. Municipalities have the ability to not only reduce their own GHG within their operations, but have the ability to drive better planning processes and with better tax classifications to drive greater adoption of private facilities being more energy efficient. The design of roads, transit, parks, employments zones, schools, and housing all have very specific impacts on the GHG intensity level of communities. The same swath of land could require vehicles to get to the closest grocery store, or it could be a community of live work and play, where walking, biking, transit and neighborhood stores are part of the fabric and not a nuisance in the way of road travel… While some municipalities have always chosen to lead ahead of provincial direction, this Climate Summit definitely granted an environmental license to municipalities to create the communities that are truly sustainable. Will municipalities take this environmental license? In my experience, municipalities require the same vigor and vision that you find in successful businesses. Yes, I know, a municipality is not a business, but it competes every day for people, jobs and culture. Its success is based on who and what it wants to attract and sets very specific targets to achieve it. I have seen plenty a municipality have an appetite to change its ways in order to attract people and jobs, but stops short of differentiating itself from neighbouring municipalities. Too many municipalities accept the conditions they find themselves in, like small amount of serviced employment lands, road-based communities, and empty manufacturing plants. Many will try same old tactics to generate growth without changing the DNA of what they want to look like as a municipality. I’ve also seen cities adopt great direction but for argument sake, is not the desired direction of the current voters. It’s not a bad thing. But you need to work harder to communicate with them to educate them as to what’s needed and why and for who. I’ve seen residents who have moved to the suburbs to buy a larger lower cost home, and yet complain when an LRT is being considered nearby to bring residents to subway lines quicker. They would rather not ruin the road by removing the lane of cars. There is something wrong here, and it fundamentally comes down to the municipality is building a city for residents it wants vs the ones it has. Good luck. Not an easy challenge, but it definitely starts with educating and maybe show them how their property values go up with the changes…. In my opinion, the municipality that develops a sustainable community with sustainable infrastructure will sustain the right jobs and people who will drive growth going forward. Municipal leaders, rise up and take that environmental license and declare you are going to be the greenest and most innovative community in North America and don’t look back. You blink, you lose. For every other municipal leader, take your position in line of the laggards and you’ll be kicking and screaming as to the eventual environmental requirements, but at least you’ll have the best buggy whips in town…. for a while. There are clear approaches and strategies and tactics that can generate a leading municipality, and I look forward to continuing those conversations with municipal leaders. If you have any thoughts, don’t hesitate to share on social media or email me. Thank you, Frank Carnevale Thought leader on sustainability, energy efficiency and clean energy [email protected] Twitter @fcarnevale and @sustainco
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Recently, we announced a strategic partnership with Panoramic Power on utilizing their industry-leading real-time wireless energy management system and analytics. I'd like to walk you through some of our thinking. Traditional Energy Management Most Commercial and Institutional facilities have a Building Automation System (BAS), and these systems are hard-wired and they can be quite sophisticated in controlling and managing energy in these facilities. We are designers, resellers and installers of several BAS brands ourselves. It makes sense to optimize building systems. BUT, in a typical commercial facility, the building systems would account for less than 50% of the impact on demand load for the entire facility. Lights, plugs and loads are typically not part of the BAS and thus left out of the energy management system. Basically, more than half of your total utility bill is impacted by demand users, and they're not part of being managed. This is the crux of our revamped strategies to holistically manage the Total Demand Load. Total Demand Load In the last few months, as I've been speaking with dozens of energy management firms, I would hear the same message on the concept of trying to manage the total demand load: "You can't manage the behaviour of staff". I'm not surprised that this would be their attitude, but it certainly set the challenge to do just that. We set out to monitor the lights, plugs and loads and certainly for non-BAS facilities comes challenges of how do we connect it cost effectively. Even though we have over 55% of the load to generate more energy savings to pay for the new monitors, it has to be compelling... Meet compelling. Wireless Wins, Hands Down Let's be clear; there are plenty of so-called low-cost wired meters but they are typically 1/4 of the overall cost when you factor in labour and wired costs. I have heard of sticker shock from asset owners who clearly hadn't understood the costs involved. The only knock I've heard of wireless, to-date, has been disbelief that wireless sensors could send signals outside of a steel electrical panel, and Panoramic Panel proves that it can easily read its devices. The challenge is over. Wireless win, hands down. Yes, my default is to recommend wireless from now on. BUT, we're not done. RFID Advantage Panoramic Power figured out a method that further reduced the overall capital costs of wireless. They used Radio Frequency ID (RFID) to send the signals to a more efficient collector/reader several feet away from the panel, and that further reduction of power requirements for the sensors then further enabled the sensors to use its very small drain of power from the circuit itself to send the signal. I haven't seen a wireless sensor come close to this innovation. Opportunities? Here are the immediate opportunities: - Compete with typical BAS for energy management systems - Bring wireless performance management to non-BAS facilities - Provide competitive pricing on a wireless energy management system  and ongoing analysis - Create an entire new focus on demand users and the impacts they have on loads   We will continue to expand relationships on heads-up displays, analytics and protocols managing demand users. We have changed the Rules of the Game. We're optimizing building performance for customers, and we're building performance in their business.   Sincerely, Frank Carnevale SVP, SustainCo Inc. [email protected]
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The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) just posted this great report on the movement to "District Energy in Cities". SustainCo is proud to be a leader in the promotion of sustainable thermal energy systems, "community energy systems", across Canada, and I encourage you to review it and better understand how we can move space heating and cooling away from the use of commodities and focus more on the use of renewable energy around us and under us and more efficient use of what commodities we continue to use. Thanks Frank Carnevale [email protected]
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Community Energy Systems- Turning up the Heat! Changing the way we source our energy (heating, cooling and electricity) is closer than you think; catapulted by the advancements in local energy sourcing that are converging into Community Energy Systems. Traditional Energy Distribution Systems Buildings require electricity, heating and in most cases cooling. Traditional methods of meeting those energy requirements utilize a more centralized distribution delivery system of natural gas for heating and the electrical distribution utility for heating, cooling and electrical needs. Governments created regulatory agencies to oversee rate-regulated utilities with the idea of enabling, in essence, franchise service territories so that these basic energy needs can be delivered with a credible distribution company and arguably at the best cost possible. The idea is that these rate-regulated utilities have lower risk of revenue and certainly have reasonable visibility into the rates that they can charge, that the investment return expectations in these utilities is on the lower end compared to other businesses. Without getting into the merits of the model, the key is that the governments and regulators, and really most developers, believe that this default delivery system is in the rate payers’ interests. The challenge with the model, from the public’s perspective, is that a tremendous amount of complacency sets in with respect to automatically allowing these rate-regulated utilities to be the deliverer of energy requirements. This is a pseudo monopoly because there is an assumption that it is the most cost effective option for the consumer. I would argue that it is not. It’s not to say that these current energy distribution companies cannot deliver the untapped local energy potential to you, but that their current investment model is fairly cookie-cutter and void of tapping into the advantages of the free energy all around you and your properties. What are Community Energy Systems? In really simple terms, a community energy system is a heating/cooling and possibly power system that is more efficient because it takes advantage of diverse loads among its customers (not everyone needs heating or cooling at the same time), and the final piece is incorporating renewable and local energy sources around you. The design component is fairly easy, but it does fly in the face of most engineering design firms that benefit more from taking simple designs of over-capacity boilers and chillers to meet your needs. It’s the simplest thing to do. The renewables component is more complex but worth it! The sun heats up the ground around you and creates a layer from a few feet down to hundreds of feet that maintains a fairly constant temperature. You can use that to reject heat and to use heat for your heating and cooling. There are many names for it: geoexchange; geothermal; ground source heating. You can also tap into the sun more directly with solar panel whether they be for electricity or for thermal requirements. Yes, there is a capital cost to collecting and processing these renewables, but the buildings you are in will last for more than 20 years, and these systems can be paid off over time, this virtually eliminates and certainly greatly reduces your reliance on other commodities through distributed energy to your building. This is smart energy! Others refer to this approach as integrated community energy, smart energy networks and in more simplistic ways, district energy. Today, there are certain external dynamics at work that make this approach economic. Historically, the challenge for these holistic integrated energy designers is that they come up with decent designs and models and slide over the proposal across the table. Developers and asset owners are not expecting to have to front those costs. By the way, did I mention that we are in the largest market for hot water tank rental? The industry needs to meet the needs by creating and funding these unregulated utilities, and with interest rates being so low and the investment return expectations on long term assets or bonds being so low, we now have an amazing business case to start bringing in institutional investors like pension funds to own these assets. I absolutely see the current rate-regulated utilities getting into this business, but we are adding in a layer of customized approaches and designs that the industry aren’t used to accommodating. Where will the changes occur? I believe that the tipping point will occur when asset owners like cities, school boards and campus-like owners, express greater interests in enabling holistic integrated energy systems, and from the bottom, designers get better at demonstrating how these integrated systems can save the asset owners and users money. The mark of success occurs when rate regulated utilities start becoming owners of these integrated systems. Kudos to Oakville Hydro, Markham and Guelph for leading the way.   On October 20th and 21st, I invite to attend the Action Partners Global Leadership and Innovation Summit in Toronto. Great opportunity to meet and share ideas with global leaders in turning sustainability ideas into action.   By Frank Carnevale SVP of SustainCo Inc. – sustainable infrastructure solutions Editor, The Sustainability Daily RSI Board Member [email protected]  
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MY SMART ENERGY COMMUNITY STARTS WITH NATURE Recently, Arup published a paper about Green Infrastructure, “Cities Alive | Rethinking Green Infrastructure”. I think it’s a great report that highlights the need to integrate natural and built environments to address the challenges of population growth and climate change in our cities, and in a way that delivers both social and economic benefits. They focus on a green-infrastructure-led design approach that promotes the use of nature. It’s consistent with the approach that we continue to advocate that suggests the value of your real estate assets are being undervalued. Running water, heat sinks, access to sunlight, to name a few, are natural characteristics to be utilized in the day to day operations of the use of a site. It’s not to suggest that every site should be focused on energy generation, but every site should maximize its energy potential first and foremost before it looks to bring power in from the grid or other fuels for that matter. Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE) has embarked on additional concepts of its Smart Energy Networks (SENS). The most recent report: https://wise.uwaterloo.ca/documents/jatin-nathwani/documentsofinterest/conceptdevelopmentforsmartenergynetworks111201nathwanipdf WISE is putting the concept to work in attempting to create some working models in Canada. Another organization, in which I am an active participant, is Quality Urban Energy Systems of Tomorrow (QUEST), and they are educating and supporting the roll out of integrated community energy systems across Canada. You can find one of their videos on our website. www.sustainco.ca. The market is certainly growing with respect to developing and operating community energy systems, but the challenges I pose to those involved is whether or not the systems are as sustainable as can be, and do they incorporate the natural assets surrounding them? I look forward to your comments on the reports or on how we generate more successes. Sincerely, Frank Carnevale Thought Leader [email protected]
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I have been working with municipal leaders across Canada for the last 15 years on different projects and ideas, and while I'm impressed with the advancement of some of them to become more sustainable, the vast majority are still dealing with the old paradigms. For example, municipalities are large land owners by their own right, and have yet to maximize the real potential of their own rights of ways, lands, storm water ponds, lakes, buildings, etc... If there is an image that can best describe what I'm talking about it's this. While industrialization and urbanization have taken the farm out of those communities, these land owners today must continue to farm. There are unique ways of using storm water ponds, lakes and rivers for very cost effective thermal energy, but one needs to look at the value beyond the bricks of your building. We need nurture and harvest things like wind, solar, and in almost every case, the sun heats up your roofs your ground, and instead of harnessing it for our thermal needs, we ignore it and pay full freight for electricity or natural gas or other commodity fuels to heat and cool our buildings. Seems odd doesn't it? I could write a book on the complexity of selling an entire industry on the virtues of doing this but the industry cultural biases are to doing what they've always done, and leaves no room for change and the idea of customizing solutions for each property. You all have the ability to Farm Energy! There are processes one could use to identify those opportunities on your land and how to maximize it, and in the era of siting peaking gas plants in dense communities, seems grossly unnecessary, since we have the knowledge on how to do things better. My challenge is to get back to our roots as a society and learn to farm the value on your land. I always appreciate comments, and in the meanwhile, you'll find me teaching people to farm again. Sincerely, Frank Carnevale Thought Leader SustainCo Inc. www.sustainco.ca [email protected]
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