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

Today, more than ever, companies across diverse industries and geographies are facing increased pressures to improve financial performance and simultaneously achieve sustainability goals. This pressure is driving firms to view improved energy management as a significant lever for reducing cost and improving performance.

The most successful organizations have realized that using energy management services and software to understand energy consumption is the first step to improving their financials. The basis behind all these tools and analysis is data.

Urjanet aligned a panel of energy management experts from eSight Energy and Verdantix to discuss the reasons for and impacts of increased investment in energy management and the role that energy data plays in fueling these systems.

THE PANEL:

Janie Jefferies-Freer President

Alisdair McDougall Industry Analyst

Erik Becker Vice President

RESOURCES

EXPERT Q&A:

ENERGY DATA MANAGEMENT IS KEY TO INCREASING PROFITS

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For the full panel, please refer to Urjanet’s webinar replay, “Energy Data, The New Profit Lever.”

Why are firms investing more in energy management software?

VERDANTIX: Today’s increased investment in energy management is primarily fueled by four main drivers: financial performance, customers, sustainability, and legislation.

1. Financial Performance: This is the main driver people consider to reduce energy consumption to drive down energy costs. But, you also have to look at aspects such as increasing energy prices to further enhance the economic benefit of taking a closer look at energy management.

2. Customers: Attitudes are changing over time, especially when we look at big consumer-facing industries, such as the apparel or retail sector. Customers place more value in how organizations operate and how they impact the world in which we live. This is driving firms to look at the sustainability of their products and internal operations.

3. Sustainability: An item of increasing importance on the corporate agenda. We’re seeing more firms committing to sustainability targets, which not only include energy reduction, but also include water, carbon, and waste management.

By evaluating your organization through a sustainability lens, you can highlight a number of opportunities, including:

• improving operational efficiency• improving quality of service• reducing costs• attracting & retaining employees• increasing your brand perception• adding potential new revenue channels

4. Legislation: As the debate around climate change goes on, we see more nations developing legislation to try to curb the impacts we’re all having on the environment. This is increasing the burden for companies not only to comply with such legislation, but also to mitigate risks from financial penalties.

The way that firms should be looking at these four main drivers is interlinked. They should all be seen as having a positive impact on the organization.

What exactly should an energy management program provide to my organization?

ESIGHT: There are obviously diversifications of this, but essentially an energy management program should follow these basic guidelines:

1. Collecting the data. This includes collecting current and historical data so your organization can see its present state as well as understand trending from months or years past.

2. Analyzing and reporting. Your program should be able to find out where you can save the most and how to ensure that you’ve got exception reports to alert you if there’s any slip in performance.

The overall objective is for your energy usage profile to essentially shrink.

If cost savings and economic benefits are driving investment in energy management, how would you go about cutting costs, even if you can’t see where they are?

VERDANTIX: It’s a telling story within most organizations. Cost savings are hard to find in some instances, but organizations will one day realize that energy data is something they should look at if they want to find opportunities to cut costs. If they weren’t hard to find, you would likely have already made sure that you were benefiting from them to begin with.

1. The first step is to ensure that you have access to good quality, granular data, which will help identify previously invisible opportunities. Once you have your hands on the data, you can really start to analyze where issues are occurring and where you can get the biggest return on your investment.

2. The second step we see with firms is related to finding a good way to organize all of this newfound data. If you don’t have a systematic approach, you’ll just find yourself with headache from data overload

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“Once you have your hands on the data, you can really start to analyze where issues are occuring.”

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and you will be unable to get any value from it because there’s no clear way of handling it.

3. The last step is investing in a robust data management solution, which can really help you organize your information to find the savings.

What are the benefits of having an automated energy data management platform or solution?

VERDANTIX: It really provides easy access to this information across the enterprise. We see that this data has benefits at the strategic and practical levels. Energy and facilities, procurement, logistics, and supply chain are just some examples of where being able to access robust granular data would be beneficial.

What are the benefits of energy data at the strategic level, or for C-level executives?

VERDANTIX: At the strategic level, you’ve got individuals such as the CFO, CSO, COO, and CIO, who can all benefit from having access to this information at the enterprise level. Being able to roll this data up and look at it from a business level allows them to start basing some very strategic business objectives and targets on good quality data.

Once we have the quality data, where can we find the cost savings to improve profitability?

VERDANTIX: What we’ve found, and what we continue to see, is that combining data analytics and some good old-fashioned brain power really results in your firm’s finding significant savings. It’s a matter of delivering the right data into the hands of the right people who can bring about some amazing results. Initially, firms should focus on three main savings opportunities:

1. Energy efficiency opportunities within your existing portfolio

2. Savings from better managing energy data for internal and external reporting purposes

3. Supply side savings associated with optimizing procurement strategies and better managing existing utility contracts

What are the other potential benefits for investing in energy data and energy management software?

VERDANTIX: These potential benefits include reducing capital expenditures by improving asset utilization and improving employee comfort and working conditions. They also include de-risking decisions on energy efficiency investments by being able to run multiple scenarios based on accurate data, strengthening operational risk management, and strengthening carbon risk management and accounting. Also, a company’s investment in energy can also rub off on its employees, encouraging them to learn about energy and environmental issues so that they can start to incorporate sustainable practices within their day-to-day lives.

What are some of the challenges involved with implementing an energy management project?

ESIGHT: There are many challenges involved with implementing an energy project. One of the most complex challenges is data acquisition. There are multiple utilities and there is often little or no submetering. Projects that implement submetering can be costly, resource-heavy, and time consuming. Because these projects can be seen as complex, companies often choose to do nothing rather than take them on. The problem is, you can’t see your data. You know, you might take a little walk down the hall and see if your chillers are working properly. But without data, you have no way of knowing what’s actually happening on a daily basis. Energy costs are one of the heaviest costs to your organization. When you don’t look at something, it can get out of control.

What type of energy data am I getting? ESIGHT: When we talk about this data, it’s really billing data or meter interval data. Billing data enables you to check any anomalies on your bill. Secondly, it allows you to analyze trends. So you can say for this year, and year over year, how are we doing? Is our usage higher? Are our costs higher? With interval data, we’ve got a wider range of analysis opportunities. You get a far more

“One of the most complex challenges is data acquisition.”

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accurate way to calculate a baseline, to know where you’ve come from, to actually set targets to reduce your energy usage, to monitor that real-time performance, and to normalize for external factors. We can actually compare our billing data with our interval data. You get that data delivered into your eSight system the next day.

What if we look at the data, and we have high and low performance when the driving factor is exactly the same?

ESIGHT: We can strip that data back, and say, “Well, hang on a second. We know that we’ve got higher usage here.” We can then go investigate on which days that occurred. We’re doing this on dashboards instead of with paper bills, so we can translate the data into something that’s meaningful. You’re actually managing energy instead of spending a lot of time crunching data. That’s why it’s important to have a dashboard that links to an energy management system, that links to proper data - the billing data and interval data we’re getting from Urjanet.

How does this look, with regards to seeing an energy management system in action?

ESIGHT: The graphic below is an example of how, in near real-time, we can see kilowatt-hour usage against a driving factor of air temperature. You can see when the air temperature is one particular value, we sometimes have some lower usage, and we sometimes have some higher usage. The overall objective is to drive down energy consumption and costs.

Can you talk about teams that have worked together and been competitive with one another to promote saving energy?

ESIGHT: As an example, one of our manufacturing clients actually does daily huddles with their teams. We’re talking about engineers and operators. Every day, you’ve got the shift leader coming in and saying “How did shift A do? How did shift B do? How did shift C do?” during different times of the day. Then, he looks at how the shifts have performed throughout the week. The groups try to keep their energy usage below a certain threshold for the week, and so forth. There are different ways of approaching that, but I think certainly the

Data Collection

Identify Energy Use

Analyze & Report

Optimize ExceptionReport

Collect data for weeks/months

Monitor usage across all sites

Produce reports to inform teams

Control process, reduce base load

Automate reports, Prevent slip-back

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instruments are there to be able to slice and dice and present that data in any way that you see fit. I think a bit of competition is always a bit of fun as well.

How can the timeliness of data be additional help to departments outside of the energy department?

ESIGHT: Let’s break this down. If you’re getting data delivered to you and you’re in a finance department, we can look at timely bill pay. We can avoid late fees. We can basically analyze that data and look at anomalous data, instead of just paying the bill straight away. That’s absolutely critical. In the maintenance department, particularly with interval data, we can be aware of anomalies and get maintenance involved a lot sooner. I think having that data distributed out, so that you’ve got the team that is able to actually manage the finance side and manage the actual optimization side is crucial. Those two areas are probably the most critical in addressing the usage levels.

What exactly does Urjanet do?

URJANET: At Urjanet, we focus on one simple mission. That is to provide the big energy data organizations use to make smarter, more profitable, and eco-friendly energy decisions. We don’t provide software of any kind, or energy management services of any kind. Energy data is all that we do.

How can Urjanet’s energy data help my company become more profitable?

URJANET: Our data is used throughout the enterprise, helping bring efficiencies and better decision making to key stakeholders in accounting, procurement, facilities and energy management, and sustainability. Through these insights, you can uncover opportunities to reduce energy consumption and cut costs, which for many companies directly impacts the bottom line.

Additionally, many energy solutions companies see value in fueling their systems with Urjanet data, as it increases their profitability, helps them scale their business, and improves their operational efficiencies. It helps them sell more to end users.

What type of energy data am I getting with Urjanet’s data service?

URJANET: Our data is packaged into four product offerings.

Urjanet Utility Data provides detailed information from the utility bill along with a copy of the bill image itself. This provides our customers with a richer source of data that’s delivered faster and more cost-effectively than it is by any other means.

Urjanet Meter Data is a stream of interval or smart meter data that’s provided without the installation of expensive on-premise sensors, data loggers, or other types of metering equipment.

Urjanet Weather Data includes hourly observations from over 4,000 certified weather stations.

Urjanet Alerts is a data feed that includes notifications about possible usage anomalies.

What are the advantages of Urjanet’s energy data products?

URJANET: There are a number of benefits that come with automating the collection of energy data and no longer relying on paper bills or spreadsheets. Fundamentally, we’ve automated the process, which results in data that’s much more accurate. It’s richer. We collect all of the data elements on the utility bill. In some cases, that’s as many as 125 different data elements. It’s also of course going to come much faster, because the data is gathered right after the bill has been posted. There’s no waiting for the bill to go through the mail. To access any kind of real-time or near real-time meter data, some organizations install on-premise metering equipment, which can be very expensive. Conversely, Urjanet’s offering provides an ongoing near real-time stream of data as soon as the utility provides it.

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“Without data, you have no way of knowing what’s actually happening on a daily basis.”

How would someone get started with using the Urjanet data feed?

URJANET: First, we take a look at the list of utilities that they want to be pulling data from, because we would activate those accounts on our platform. Next, but perhaps most importantly, we always want to understand how they will be using the data. Most often, they want to integrate our data into systems that they may have in place. Our data is actually delivered in a relational format, which makes it pretty straightforward to integrate into accounts payable, energy management, procurement and other systems. The other reason we like to have that conversation is oftentimes, once we understand what they’re trying to do with the data, we can refer them to a partner of ours. We have folks like eSight and others that have tremendous applications for visualizing and tracking energy data. Sometimes our customers need services like bill validation and bill payment, or sustainability reporting. Our partners do a great job of providing that type of service.

Do you partner with energy management services and software providers?

URJANET: It’s natural for us to partner with these types of organizations. Providing the types of energy management services that many organizations are in business to do requires good data. Therefore, we embed our data into their platforms to enable their service offerings.

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Can you give some examples of other companies that are using energy data to save on energy costs?

Since 2003, Walmart has been committed to using or procuring 7 billion kilowatt-hours of renewable energy annually by 2020, along with reducing energy consumption by 20%. By 2020, once both of these initiatives have been fully implemented, Walmart expects to save around $1 billion annually in energy savings. In 2003, Walmart recorded profits of $17 billion, with 3.6% profit margins. To generate an extra $1 billion in profit, the amount that Walmart expects to save from energy management, Walmart would have to increase its revenues by $28 billion. Increasing your revenues by $28 billion is no small feat and would require investment in new stores, staff, and training. A similar impact on your profit can really be made by thoroughly assessing your organization and really making sure that it’s running at its most efficient levels.

Liberty Property Trust is an $8.8 billion commercial real estate investment trust that owns 101 million square feet of industrial and office space throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. They’ve used baseload analysis as a place to start saving energy in earnest, allowing their facilities managers to look at things such as the energy used when their site should be inactive or their equipment is supposed to be off. Liberty Property Trust partnered with eSight Energy to enhance energy data management dashboards. “The last published figures that we had, and it’s gotten a lot bigger since then, was a 17.9% reduction in energy usage,” said eSight’s President, Janie Jefferies-Freer during Urjanet’s webinar. “That would be through things such as targeting exactly what energy is being wasted by being able to see that interval data during those inoperable, or supposed to be inoperable, hours.”

“One of the things that we found as well is that organizations who actually get everybody involved tend to save more,” said Jefferies-Freer. “The Ricoh Arena in England is a great example. This is massive stadium and a London 2012 Olympic venue. They basically have dashboards throughout their sites, especially in their reception areas. They get their staff involved. They get their visitors involved. Everybody’s thinking about energy management in that venue because it’s so prominently displayed. We see some huge successes from organizations that do that.”

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ABOUT URJANET

Urjanet’s mission is to provide the world with easy access to automated energy data. Our cloud-based platform seamlessly extracts and normalizes disparate utility bill and interval data directly from the source, and delivers it into the business systems and products that rely on it. Leading commercial enterprises and energy solutions providers use Urjanet data to gain deeper insight into energy consumption and spend. Urjanet is a privately-held company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

For more information, visit www.urjanet.com.

Carlsberg Group is the fifth largest brewery group in the world with regional operations throughout Europe and Asia. “They have dashboards in every location of their brew houses,” Jefferies-Freer explained. “Each member of their staff has tailored information showing just for their area what they’re doing in terms of energy management performance. They’re looking at the efficiency of the product that they turn out. They’re looking at spikes or missing areas of data. They’re looking at peak demand thresholds.”

AtSite offers a whole range of different services to help their clients manage and reduce energy usage. By looking at what they can do and benchmarking sites, they’ve actually delivered some huge savings. One particular example which eSight Energy cited during Urjanet’s webinar is the American Society of Hematology. Through good data and best practices for energy management, the American Society of Hematology achieved a 9% reduction in electricity, a nearly 20% reduction in water usage, and a 40% reduction in carbon footprint.