The Building Advisor

Is it us, or does it feel like it’s all about us lately?

Building Retrofits Need an Extreme Makeover -Reuters – “the industry as a whole needs a robust set of data on post-retrofit performance and payback before they will be convinced that the opportunity to reduce operating costs is real, the risks are low, and the ROI is high enough to justify investments in efficiency.”

Image by Ben Heine

How the Fate of PACE Could Influence the Clean Energy Economy – GreenBiz.com – PACE financing is a potentially revolutionary way to retrofit commercial, residential, and industrial properties with energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. The program overcomes one of the largest hurdles to investment in clean energy — the upfront cost.”

Creating 625,000 jobs and saving $64 billion through energy efficiency – Grist – “Efficiency Works” [PDF], a major new report by Bracken Hendricks, Bill Campbell, and Pen Goodale, finds that a straightforward set of policies aimed at upgrading just 40 percent of the residential and commercial building stock in the United States would:

• Create 625,000 sustained full-time jobs over a decade.
• Spark $500 billion in new investments to upgrade 50 million homes and office buildings.
• Generate as much as $64 billion a year in cost savings for U.S. ratepayers, freeing consumers to spend their money in more productive ways.

Universal Benchmarking Is Essential in the Fight Against Global Warming – Huffington Post – “We need the benchmark numbers to motivate change. Without them, how will we measure progress? How will we create the most effective policies and incentives?”

Image: Ben Heine’s photostream on Flickr

Sauer Incorporated's HQ in Jacksonville, Florida

If the existing building stock of commercial real estate in the U.S. is an agreed-upon goldmine for energy savings, hospitals and health care facilities represent a pot of gold at the end of the efficiency rainbow.

Hospitals use about 2.5 times the amount of energy as a similar-sized commercial building, according to a 2009 estimate published in Environmental Leader. “As a sector, hospitals and health care facilities account for a disproportionate amount of energy use and emissions, EL’s article “Hospitals Due for Energy Efficiency Overhaul” states.

Ed Brady made the healthcare / efficiency connection with BuildingAdvice. Brady, a Service Account Representative for mechanical contracting company Sauer, Inc.’s Columbus, OH location, started using BuildingAdvice in early 2010. In only a few months of using the efficiency platform for commercial buildings, Brady had quoted $750,000 in energy efficiency retrofits to Fayette County Memorial Hospital, a two-building, critical access hospital in Columbus.

“Fayette was ready to think more seriously about their energy spend,” Brady said by phone in August.

Sauer, a four-branch company with an annual revenue of $478 million, had committed to pursuing energy services as part of its overall corporate strategy this year. Sauer, Inc. sister company Ruthrauff Sauer, based in Pittsburgh, PA, recommended BuildingAdvice to Brady and his associates in January of this year. The following month, Brady was putting AirAdvice’s industry-leading energy services platform to work.

“We needed a competitive edge to both maintain existing service agreements and expand new ones,” said Brady. He worked with his AirAdvice support representative, Zack Buquet, to discuss and design a marketing strategy around the product. Together, they agreed that offering free benchmarking was the strategy that best fit Sauer’s needs.

Fayette County Memorial Hospital

“The contract customers weren’t biting on the energy services,” said Brady of his existing client base. “We found that by offering free benchmarking, you will definitely get potential new clients and some nice first meetings,” Brady said. “It doesn’t really take that much of my time to do the benchmarking.”

Brady had done roughly seven benchmarks for a variety of property types when he approached Fayette County Memorial Hospital, whose leadership showed a very favorable reaction to the energy benchmark – especially considering one building scored the lowest on the EnergyStar ratings scale possible, the other very low.

After performing a complete canvas of all mechanical equipment, Brady and associates found boilers from 1974, outdated cooling towers, and rooftop units near ASHRAE end-of-life. Sauer budgeted replacement costs, estimated paybacks and used a BuildingAdvice Energy Audit to propose, among other retrofits:

• $500,000 to replace old boilers and pipes
• $185,000 for rooftop unit replacement
• $20,000 for lighting

The meeting went well, and the hospital is seeking funding by to pay for the bulk of the work by early 2011. In the meantime, the hospital will use in-house resources to address the low-cost recommendation from BuildingAdvice’s Energy Assessment to replace the lighting system. Savings from these upgrades will be show results to be evaluated in January, particularly in electrical usage. The hospital is then eligible to push the lighting retrofit through the local utility to become eligible for rebates.

Brady is clear that his relationship with Fayette is due 100% to starting the energy conversation and following up with BuildingAdvice reports. Doing the assessment allowed him to get in the door, survey the entire facility and identify all of this project work.

Ruthrauff Sauer, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Moreover, Brady has discussed ongoing continuous energy monitoring – another service available through BuildingAdvice – after the hospital has its equipment replaced, to monitor, manage, and ensure ongoing energy savings “in real time,” as Brady puts it.

“BuildingAdvice not only gets people’s attention, it’s useful,” said Brady. “We have had some great successes already.”

I mean look at this guy. Don't you want his help with energy conservation measures?

This week, Joey Penneman went from interning at AirAdvice as a student at the Northwest Energy Efficiency Institute at Lane Community College, to becoming a full time employee at AirAdvice.

For the past six weeks, Joey has been slaving away doing laundry and dishes – er, learning the ropes – at AirAdvice’s downtown Portland offices.

Joey’s duties as an intern were to research and develop the calculations for AirAdvice’s new Residential SmartEnergy Report, the Chiller Diagnostic Application and our Industrial Benchmarking and Diagnostic Application.

“Joey made significant strides after his first two weeks of onboarding projects and trainings,” said Lucas Klesh, AirAdvice Product & Building Expert. “He showed an adept willingness to work with customers in report interpretation and recommendations, which suits the position perfectly.”

As an Associate Energy Analyst, Joey will work with BuildingAdvice channel partners in providing support and training to our customer base on the best practices of implementing BuildingAdvice from a technical perspective. Moreover, he’ll help our customers identify and implement savings opportunities identified by BuildingAdvice’s assessment and audit reports.

After all, getting a contractor rock solid on exactly what energy conservation measures (ECMs) he should suggest to the end user is the best way to drive home imminent savings and project work.

Joey will also continue to assist in developing new products.

Truth be told, Joey is our second employee from Lane’s crack energy training program. Stephen Green, another Associate Energy Analyst, joined AirAdvice under the same auspices earlier this year.

Talk about waste.

[We do, actually, in an upcoming authored article for November’s Facility Management Journal. Watch for it.]

Only 8.4 percent of the $3.2 billion that Congress voted in February 2009 to provide jobs and improve energy efficiency has been spent.

So reported the New York Times’ Green blog from an audit released last week by the inspector general of the Energy Department. Environmental Leader also covered it here, BEPI here.

Worse, the stimulus funds have produced or saved only about 2,300 jobs as of the second quarter of this year. Even New York City has spent less than 2% of the $80.8 million it was awarded, Chicago: 0.1 percent (of $27.6 million). Come on, people!

What’s the problem? Staffing. Not enough people to process and push the new programs. However, the Washington Post provides an alternate viewpoint here; The Energy Department defends itself on The Hill. So natch, it’s a little more complicated than it appears.

The stimulus funds were released through energy and conservation block grants to states and cities. Gotta say, many of our fair states and cities HAVE taken advantage, much of which has been reported here at The Building Advisor.

And on the flip side, Greenbang reported on “The Recovery Act: Transforming the American Economy through Innovation” and what the stimulus HAS set in motion: acceleration in the electric car battery and solar / wind energy industries, expanded broadband Internet access across the U.S., and a smarter energy grid.

For whatever reason, The Building Advisor thought this was appropriate:

Images courtesy current.tv’s wtf blog, The White House, and delagosis on youtube.

A month ago,Chris H., Assistant Global Energy Solutions Manager at Solutia Inc., posted “Five Overlooked Building Improvements with Quick ROI that Increase Energy Efficiency” to myfacilities.net.

In it, he touches on a variety of utility-saving solutions, the most pertinent to The Building Advisor being number 3, Energy Management Systems.

He writes,

Greg Galusha of MacDonald Miller in Bellevue, WA

“An energy management system consists of a combination of building management systems and advanced software solutions that work together to control a building’s HVAC operations…The system ensures optimal energy usage, resulting in greater efficiency and lower utility costs.”

He then posted the post to the Building Owners and Managers (BOMA) International LinkedIn Group under the question header, “How can you increase energy efficiency and reduce utilities?”

To date, there have been 56 comments.

Some of them have been from blog spotlightees before, like Greg Galusha of MacDonald-Miller Facility Solutions (“MacDonald-Miller Finds BuildingAdvice Perfect Fit for Energy Efficiency in Small to Midsize Buildings“) and Zack Buquet, one of our own here at AirAdvice and a Building Advisor contributor.

The long and the short of it is this: talk of replacing HVAC units, building envelopes, window film, demand response, lighting, and reflective insulators, elevator motor “soft starters.” From the short and sweet to vociferously verbose, there is no shortage of ideas out there on how to save dough on energy. We just need to DO it.

Great comments from Gary Markowitz, President, Kilojolts Consulting Group, Inc. & KCG Energy LLC. Gary touches on culture – shifting the mindset of a company toward energy efficiency as a priority. Julius Walcyznski at Canada’s Pulse Energy has some great things to say as well regarding occupant engagement.

Zack Buquet, Energy Services Business Consultant at AirAdvice

But here at AirAdvice, we’re looking at the causes of energy waste in buildings, and work with HVAC contractors to attack the problem. Those contractors in turn work directly with the building owners and managers BOMA serves, the decisionmakers behind energy efficiency decisions. Until those owners and managers recognize that they are throwing money away unnecessarily, the building’s occupant engagement can’t happen.

BOMA’s LinkedIn discussion also contains quite a bit of chatter around energy benchmarking, assessments and audits; it’s great to hear these words being used with knowledge, even if it is within a fairly specific community.

Mike Zimmerman, CEO of BuildingIQ in Sydney, Australia, wrote:

Mike Zimmerman, CEO of BuildingIQ

“…Energy Reporting systems such as Lucid Designs provides energy-use metrics from meters and the BMS [Building Management System?]. There are also now Energy Optimization technologies that supervise how the BMS runs and and make the building much more intelligent. Our system, called BuildingIQ…is a Predictive Energy Optimization system that incorporates energy prices, weather forecasts and ASHRAE comfort models to optimize energy use, cost and comfort. This type of proactive system that interacts with the BMS can save 10-20% of total building energy and is paid for on a subscription basis…”

Throughout the conversation, claims of savings between 10-30% on utility bills are made.

Where do you think a realistic savings percentage average from the use of energy management systems looks like?

And is this savings driven more by occupants or building systems?

Drop us a comment!

The youngest SF Mayor in we can't remember how long.

San Francisco pulled into the lead for most progressive energy policy last week when Mayor Gavin Newsom (at 42, the youngest San Francisco mayor in over a century) submitted his nine-months-in-the-making proposed legislation on existing commercial buildings to the city’s Board of Supervisors.

The proposed legislation would require the owners of commercial buildings over 5,000 square feet to conduct an energy-efficiency audit every five years, and to supply annual updates – all of which would be available in a public database, according to the SF Gate.

And guess what? These required audits would come back with helpful suggestions on how to increase the property’s energy efficiency, say by sealing windows, or upgrading the HVAC system. Kind of like what BuildingAdvice does. Tenants would also have access to an estimate of resulting energy savings from taking those steps, the cost of implementing them, and their economic value.

Kind of like what BuildingAdvice does.

In a post on City Insider, an SF Gate blog on “the people, politics and places of San Francisco,” John Coté wrote that Newsom likened the commercial building audits to fuel efficiency ratings listed on car windows at an auto dealership.

Is your building a Lex? Or a hum-v?

The local branch of the Building Owners and Managers Association (part of nationwide BOMA), the commercial real estate industry’s heavy-hitting advocacy group, supports the legislation, although there are still skeptics in the business community, the mayor said. Berkeley, Sonoma County, Palm Desert and Boulder, Colo. have similar programs going.

Once approved, the legislation sets a staggered, three-year schedule for compliance, starting in April.

Images courtesy Car and Driver and http://obrag.org.

New York is definitely where its at these days, what with those mandatory benchmarking laws swinging into effect and the Empire State Building’s and sustainable upgrades showing folks how it’s done.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) posted a byline in the Huffington Post on the iconic spire (did you know it is officially a Wonder of the World?), outlining the genius of the Empire State Building’s overhaul:

“…the retrofit will deliver improved windows, high-efficiency light bulbs, and among many other things, renovated heating and cooling systems at a cost of $13 million after netting out other savings. By 2013, this plan will have reduced the Empire State Building’s energy usage by 40%. The $4.4 million in annual energy savings will have completely paid for the costs of the retrofit project 3 years after completion.”

The story behind the retrofits is told at the Empire State Building sustainability exhibit, where a glowing cube and other interactive elements beckon visitors to look underneath the landmark at the energy saving innovations beneath.

Right now, the Empire State Building consumes the energy equivalent of 40,000 single-family homes.

Rep. Maloney writes about how she convened a hearing to learn more about the Empire State Building’s energy efficiency progress. She emerged learning a few things, one of them being,

“…government has a role to play in shining a spotlight on the economic, environmental and consumer benefits of retrofits, but it is the private and non-profit sectors that will roll up their sleeves, nail down the economics and make these retrofits happen.”

Across the Empire State, buildings are smartening up, with no little thanks to OptimumEnergy. The Sun-Herald.com picked up this press release from OptimumEnergy, maker of software to increase energy efficiency through HVAC, which trumpets the company’s latest New York state deals (including the 1271 Avenue of the Americas building in New York City; a GE Healthcare manufacturing facility in Troy; and Westfield Group’s Sunrise shopping center in Massapequa). OptimumEnergy estimates its reduction software to save 9.9M kWh annually across the building portfolio.

In honor of that The Building Advisor offers you this break from our regularly scheduled programming.

“Empire State of Mind”

In other news this week, EarthTechling decided to accentuate the negative in its coverage of the recent report from Pike Research, “Commercial Green Retrofit Interest Low.” Yes, they do point out the $41.1 billion potential savings from retrofits for new construction over the next 10 years. On the downside, nobody cares, apparently.

New York will fix that!

Images courtesy Doobybrain.com, Inhabitat and YouTube.

The Building Advisor is not the only one to have noticed that Americans seem to be slow on the uptake when it comes to energy efficiency. Wired Magazine’s Epicenter blog picked up greentechmedia’s (see our ‘green with envy’ post) “5 Reasons Why Green Tech Has Such a Tough Time in America” post this week, and there is some serious food for thought that goes beyond that now old standby explanation of unsexiness.

The post details how long we’ve had some of the technologies now considered “cutting edge,” such as the first wind turbine in 1888, the first photovoltaic cell in 1954, and even the invention of the first compact fluorescent lightbulb in 1976 – which wasn’t mass produced by GE at the time because it would have cost them $25 million to build the manufacturing facilities. Instead, the design was leaked and others copied it before GE had a licensing program.

“So why do we suck so much at green commercialization, while excelling at transforming science projects like search engines, microprocessors and microbes into Google, Intel and Genentech?” asks author Michael Kanellos.

Greentech does not equal hippie.

Oooh. Good question. But then he answers it five ways, so you don’t have to think that hard. And the answers go as deeply into our national need for excess as they do into mainstream mistrust of The Climate Crowd. As a sign of the times, Kanellos links to a story about the first Earth Day in 1970 and what its initiator, George Fallon, had to do with starting the EPA. It’s a bit serpentine, but a reminder that mainstream and political support – not just the “dirty, smelly, strident hippies,” as Kanellos calls them – can create real change.

Images courtesy Confessions of a She-Fan and Life of an Architect.

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn said yes to the Energy Disclosure Ordinance in February. Now what?

Back in January, Seattle mayor Mike McGinn passed the Seattle Energy Disclosure Ordinance requiring non-residential buildings over 50,000 square feet to benchmark and report on their energy performance by April 1, 2011; non-residential buildings 10,000 square feet or larger and multi-family buildings with five or more units must comply by April 1, 2012. We blogged about the ordinance in February here.

Right about now, property managers and building owners should be hustling to their utilities, because the ordinance requires building energy consumption data for the year prior. Is this happening?

Like our profile of Rob Ragozine of Donnelly Mechanical and the “street effect” of New York City’s similar legislation, The Building Advisor is wondering what actions Seattle’s commercial building owners and property managers are taking as a result.

The first meeting of the Green Building Task Force.

The City of Seattle has offered free workshops in benchmarking, and its website says that “the [ordinance] requirements will be preceded by a 1-year training and technical assistance program organized in conjunction with the US Environmental Protection Agency and local trade organizations.” So, is it underway? There is nothing up on Seattle’s Green Building Task Force page, and they’re the ones who suggested the ordinance in the first place – one year before it was adopted on February 1 of this year.

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80% of these babies' energy use is useless.

“Up to 80 percent of commercial building energy is going up in smoke,” said F. Noel Perry, founder of Next 10, an independent organization that supports research, education and action to improve California.

Next 10 has issued a new study, “Untapped Potential of Commercial Buildings: Energy Use and Emissions,” which suggests that energy use by commercial buildings could be reduced by up to 80 percent through energy efficiency measures, based on national averages. The full report is available here.

That's right, F. Noel Perry said it: you're wasting your energy

Green and mainstream pubs have jumped on Thursday’s report, from Environmental Leader (“Commercial Buildings Guzzle 37% of CA’s Energy”) to the San Francisco Chronicle’s blog The Thin Green Line, which wrote:

“Indeed, an average building’s energy use can be cut by half just with low-cost, low-tech improvements to lighting and insulation.”

Next10‘s study points out that behavioral changes, or tenant use (adjusting lighting schedule, etc.) in commercial buildings can provide energy savings at very low costs. It is nice to see BuildingAdvice’s tried and true “low- and no-cost savings adjustments” line is truly a viable claim.

It’s real, folks: there are cash saving things you can do for your building that don’t cost anything.

Unlock that savings.

GreenerBuildings pulls out the point that while there is an emphasis on energy efficiency in new construction, it is actually existing building stock that represents the biggest potential for energy reduction, yet remains largely unaddressed by state legislation.

The GreenBiz blog writes, “California’s commitment to reducing electricity consumption of state-operated buildings by 20 percent by 2015 covers new and existing structures. Certain voluntary measures in the state’s Green Building Standards Code, known as CALGreen, are scheduled to become mandatory in January 2011 for new commercial and residential construction. But there is no equivalent that applies to existing buildings.”

Images courtesy 100families.com, Next10, Kewal Gala’s photostream on flickr, and inhabitat.