PG&E EXPLORES NEXT FRONTIER OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY: ENERGY MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
This write-up originally appeared in NEXT100, a weblog on the next century of energy supported by PG&E.
By Jonathan Marshall
The actual action in software program these days isn’t the umpteenth mobile app helping you to hook up with friends at a restaurant. The heavy hitters are putting their income into so-called energy management software program, which helps enterprises quickly detect approaches to save millions of dollars by cutting their energy use.
The big players in the industry—usually by way of acquisitions or investments—include computing and networking businesses like Cisco, IBM and Intel engineering giants like General Electric and Siemens enterprise management software firms like SAP and energy businesses like ConocoPhillips. Clients reportedly include Coca-Cola, Northrop Grumman, Safeway, Sears and the city of Chicago.
Working with organization consumers
Now PG&E is obtaining into the act. It’s working with software program-as-a-service provider C3 on the newest generation of energy management solutions with key organization buyers.
PG&E has been helping buyers save energy for practically four decades. Because 1976, its energy efficiency programs have saved consumers much more than $24 billion and helped California stay away from the require to construct 24 huge power plants.
Thanks to a wise organization model pioneered in California, the utility’s revenues are “decoupled” from its energy sales, so PG&E doesn’t have an incentive to sell more kilowatt-hours of electricity or therms of gas. On the contrary, it stands to make funds by helping its buyers save even more.
Energy management software program represents the next evolution of that company. By analyzing 15-minute usage information from SmartMeters™ along with details on constructing characteristics, PG&E can help buyers flag discrepancies that identify achievable method failures or wasteful energy practices.
Special diagnostic software—which PG&E is piloting with some main technology companies on the Peninsula—can then drill into developing management systems and aid pinpoint the source of the issue, which could be an inefficient lighting system or an HVAC system that fights itself by heating and cooling different parts of the building at the very same time. Such findings can potentially stay away from a months-long energy audit costing upward of $100,000.
Potential for massive savings
The prospective savings on energy can be much bigger. Depending on the creating age and sophistication, savings of 30 percent on energy bills in commercial and industrial spaces are not uncommon. That can add up, given that commercial buildings and manufacturing plants spend more than $200 billion a year on energy in the United States.
Until fairly recently, such waste frequently went unnoticed by companies that focused more on profit centers than overhead expenses. But growing attention to sustainability and environmental risk in larger enterprises has awakened them to the possibility of growing their bottom line by going green.
Because a lot of organizations do not have the specialized abilities to take advantage of energy management software program, PG&E and other utilities can do the analysis for them. PG&E is developing such a answer, utilizing C3’s software on its own facilities and those of four other huge consumers. As the answer takes shape, the utility will roll it out across its big clients and industry segments over the next year.
So far the outcomes look promising. PG&E’s analysis of eight stores for a main retail chain found one that consumed twice as a lot energy per square foot as the other people.
“We showed the results to the head of facilities for the Western region,” recalls Southard Jones, who oversees the C3 project at PG&E. “He pointed to the stores’ energy manager and stated ‘Tomorrow, you’re fixing it.’ I’ve by no means observed such quickly action. It took four months to have a meeting, five minutes to present the outcomes, and 10 seconds to get the orders out.”