Energy Management Will Take Some Work.
June 15th, 2010
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I live and work near Silicon Valley, which can create its own echo chamber of punditry that can amplify an idea and repeat it so often that it becomes true. Or at least seems that way. We Silicon Valley dwellers feed into these echoes and take as gospel the latest pronouncement bouncing around our chamber:
- Google is a champion of individual liberties.
- Only Apple truly cares about its customers and caters to their needs.
- The Internet will connect everything everywhere taking data out of silos and increasing efficiency and liquidity
These all have a ring of truth about them, however we know that Google censors information selectively, depending upon the country that it is operating in. And that Apple is intent on generating as much money as possible in its, toll laden corner of the “Splinternet”. And finally that, while the Internet is connecting more and more of everything, it can still be mind numbingly difficult to move even simple chunks of data from one “silo” to another.
The truth it seems is less clear and somewhat more nuanced.
So too with the topic of technology and energy management. As energy prices rise over the next three decades, energy management is going to become a very important focus for the the real estate industry, perhaps even the most important. A mushrooming thicket of regulation and spiraling demand from the developing world are going to drive the cost of energy through the roof: you think that an oil price of $75 per barrel is high? What will you think when it hits $200? $300?
To effectively manage (and reduce) the energy consumption in a real estate asset, the first thing the manager needs is solid data about how the property is performing. So simple. However, herein lies the first significant obstacle to an energy management program: it isn’t that easy to get consistent, reliable energy consumption data out of a building. The typical commercial building has a heterogeneous array of systems and equipment, some using proprietary systems, some open, some with no system at all. Some utility meters enable the operator to capture data (smart meters), while most do not. Few buildings are wired to collect data and wireless collection is expensive. Mesh networks are a powerful, economical technology but are not commonly adopted, ditto with power line communication (PLC). And without data, the manager cannot begin to benchmark and track energy usage, let alone evaluate, implement and measure energy saving capital projects.
Now, there are many strides being made in this area, reducing the effort needed to gather data in an asset, from open systems (BACnet, LonWorks), to boxes that can decipher proprietary BAS systems (Tridium, Cisco). The Internet itself is a huge accelerator, making it much easier to gather data from multiple sites.
Still, developing a hardware, network and software infrastructure with which to accurately capture energy management data takes time, needs expert input and costs money. There, I said it! While as your quasi-pundit on things technological related to real estate, I would like to wave my hands and say “Easy as pie: pull the energy consumption data out of your property, start measuring and take action.” it is actually more difficult than that.
Difficult yes, but also one of the most important projects that asset and property managers will work on over the next decade.
