Building & Facilities Operations

I’ve been told, “If you’re looking for answers, they’re not going to just fall into your lap!” Well, if you post the right question, they just may fall into your LinkedIn lap. Following a Building Engines webinar on LEED EBOM certification, I wanted to open up the discussion to other property and energy management and professionals.

LinkedIn, specifically the BOMA International Group, proved to be a fruitful forum for my question: What are some tips around the greening of existing buildings? Here are some of the discussion’s responses:

Since lighting represents about 30% of our energy bill upgrading to LED lighting saved us from 74 – 90%! We have tried several different LED lamps, however, we found that the ones offered at www.lightingatlanta.org are some of the best available.

You could also add motion sensors and wire them with the light switches so after 5 minutes of no movement, the lights will automatically go off.

There are many low-cost/no-cost measures you can take to green your facilities: (1) adjusting thermostats for seasonal comfort and programming in night set-backs; (2) reducing ventilation to unoccupied spaces and for nighttime operation; (3) replacing air handler filters, and (4) other basic O&M practices to tune up energy equipment performance

You can go further by periodically conducting Level 1 audits and follow-up retro-commissioning on key systems such as the controls or boilers/chillers/air handlers.

Relative to HVAC system energy savings, if the building’s systems utilize a building automation system, a comprehensive review of the sequences of operation in comparison to actual setpoints and schedules is a great method to save operational dollars and energy. Often, over many years, changes are made by operators and unintentionally the intended energy savings design features of the HVAC systems are lost.

The building envelope is a good place to start to realize energy savings. Before upgrading HVAC equipment, it makes sense to seal up energy leaks at the roof and facade, to avoid over-spending on heating or cooling.

Do not source a lighting solution which uses products available only from one manufacturing source.

Reducing your outdoor watering costs. Most landscapers do not know how to properly set the sprinkler systems, and often just defer to over watering, since you will only notice on your water bill.

Make sure that any intelligent lighting solution is native to the building management/automation system so there is seamless access to any available data from the lamps at any time. Further this allows you to easily share information between lighting and other systems for even more potential efficiency savings.

Read more on using lighting to conserve energy!

LEED existing building certification is a helpful measure to take for many reasons.  It makes you look favorable compared to other buildings lacking certification, it can lower operating costs and increase the value of your building, and more.  Join us as David Pratt, CEO of LoraxPro, shares how to effectively implement LEED into your building and nurture it to reap extensive benefits!

David Pratt is an industry leader in the automation, simplification and project management of LEED certification projects.  He co-founded LoraxPro in 2008 and has developed product supporting the majority of LEED rating systems.  His company was the catalyst in initiating LEED automation with the USGBC’s technology team; they co-developed the XML data protocol that facilitates data exchange between LEED online and 3rd party software tools.  Mr. Pratt’s knowledge of LEED certification is extensive, and his ideas for utilizing LEED are not to be missed.

Mr. Pratt will be delivering essential tips for getting started toward LEED EB certification, getting buy-in from your team, and how to ultimately lower operating costs and increase the value of your building.  Learn about:

• The keys to a successful LEED EBOM implementation
• How to use LEED to keep tenants in your building
• How to overcome resource constraints when managing an LEED EBOM project
• How to measure ROI from a potential LEED investment

These and other topics will be discussed extensively during the webinar.  Register today and tune in on Wednesday, November 16th at 12:00pm EST to learn all about LEED EBOM and how it can work for you!

Register Now!

How can you manage energy more efficiently?

By now, we all know the importance of practicing Preventive Maintenance.  The more important question today  is, do you have a comprehensive program in place that addresses not only time-based maintenance tasks, but also predictive maintenance? A good predictive maintenance component can save you 15% is energy costs- a number not to be scoffed at when energy costs are responsible for 40% of the average building’s overall costs.

Here is one example of the different methods that can be combined to save energy costs for an HVAC:

• Program temperature set point according to occupancy
• Adapt heating or cooling production power according to real building needs
• Raise temperature to comfort level when occupant presence is detected
• Adapt ventilation flow according to occupancy or internal air pollution level
• Recover heating or cooling energy from extracted air

The future only looks certain in hindsight, so it makes sense that the puzzle of where energy prices – particularly electricity – will head and how real estate owners should plan for them is just that, a puzzle.

The Energy Information Agency (EIA) projects electricity use growth leveling off over the next 30 years: in the early ’60s, electricity consumption grew at 10 -12% annually as our standard of living grew and as manufacturing expanded. Now, with much heavy manufacturing moved offshore and our consumption per capita at high levels, the EIA projects annual growth of less that 1 – 2% through 2035, with prices (national average) in a high economic growth scenario of about 10.2 cents per KWh even though it projects commercial consumption growing about 42% over the period.  That number sounds quite calm, almost mellow and assumes that we add a significant amount of generating capacity in that time period.

A number of events could shift prices significantly higher.

1. Electricity use by computer use could grow much faster than the EIA currently reckons: the rate at which data center continues to grow is staggering, and we do not seem to have reached the limit of our need for power to run computers, servers, printers, laptops and networks.
2. Increasing regulation may make it harder to build new power sources (Hydro, thermal, nuclear).  The owners of the Texas utility TXU canceled 8 of 11 proposed coal fired power plants in 2007 due to increased public pressure and over concerns about possible cap and trade legislation.  While some advocates see nuclear power as the ultimate green energy source, (zero carbon emissions) locating new nukes and getting approval for their construction will not be easy.
3. India and China’s voracious demand for energy will drive up energy prices globally and have a knock on effect here in the U.S.  Even though both countries meet most of their electrical needs using coal – China is commissioning approximately one thermal power station a week -, an increasing proportion of this coal will have to be imported, driving up global coal prices.With the Federal and many state governments running sizable structural deficits, the lure of taxing energy under the guise of being environmentally responsible may be too strong for politicians to resist.

It may make more sense for real estate owners and operators to be anticipating the kinds of electricity rates currently seen in Europe: as high as $0.19 per KWh in Germany.

As the summer winds down and we begin to brace ourselves for the uptick in activity come September, I came across this piece in R&D.com about scientists at MIT using a virus to assemble more efficient, more green batteries.  The problem with batteries is a vexing one: in order for our economy to move beyond petroleum (particularly for transport), which has incredibly high energy density, is inexpensive and easy to transport, we need to find a more efficient way to store electrons.  Electrons are weightless, but conventional batteries are not; hence the problem.

‘”Using M13 bacteriophage as a template is an example of green chemistry, an environmentally friendly method of producing the battery,” Allen said. “It enables the processing of all materials at room temperature and in water.” And these materials, he said, should be less dangerous than those used in current lithium-ion batteries because they produce less heat, which reduces flammability risks.’

Amazing.  Now I know that technology is not an unalloyed good and that progress should not be embraced without question, but I do find it remarkable that to read about things that researchers are working on today, that may only begin to affect society 10, 20, 30 years hence.  The Internet was conceived of in 1973, rolled out in 1983 and really only began to shake things up in the late ’90s.  The transistor was invented in the Bell Labs in 1947 but it was its minaturization in an integrated circuit in 1959 that really accelerated change. And then powered the personal computer (and the Internet).  The rest, as they say, is history.

The Green Movement in Real Estate is growing darker.  All new certification schemes, like all new growth, have that light green tinge when they begin that denotes suppleness. While it makes them amendable to change, it provides little armor when the going gets tough.  As a result, many rating systems mature to a darker shade.

The USGBC’s LEED rating system is by far the most recognized and most used green building rating system in the world and the UK’s Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) is frequently used in Europe.   As standards like LEED and BREEAM mature, that light hue darkens to a more serious and robust one – characteristic of maturity and staying power.  According to Pike Research, that day has come.

Pike projects that by 2020, 53 billion square feet of space worldwide will hold some type of green building certification, up from 6 billion this year, and 73 percent of green-certified building space is in a commercial building – a number expected to grow to 80 percent by 2020.   The majority of green certifications will be held by existing buildings instead of new construction, the report says.  One American Row in Hartford, CT recently obtained Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Existing Buildings Silver status, making it one of the few LEED-EB certified buildings also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The bigger question is how a building maintains LEED certification status once it has achieved it.   Without a comprehensive scheme for posting and managing LEED related tasks – the lifeblood required to sustain any certification level – that LEED or Green status will fade to brown and join the detritus of other failed programs.  Technology – operations management systems that post and sustain LEED related tasks throughout the year are integral to maintaining LEED status.  Keeping it Green and maintaining affordability requires energy and organization as well as robust data collection, communications and reporting.  Think of these systems as the arterial system for your LEED targeted building management practice.

Without one, your LEED status will die on the vine.

Next week, we will attend and exhibit at the Building Owners & Managers Association (BOMA) 2010 International Conference in Long Beach, CA. This is our 8^th year at the event which serves the primary market we operate in.

When everything these days is driven by a need to justify expenses and deliver an ROI, there is a lot of discussion within the marketing departments of any business on the value of attending and exhibiting at association trade shows. There is a substantial cost both in real dollars and resource focus for a company to attend these shows.  In addition to the direct costs, there are opportunity costs.  Where else could you be spending these dollars and your time to more effectively reach your target audience?  These are valid concerns that should be evaluated.

However, that hard dollar evaluation doesn’t account for the ancillary benefits you receive by attending and exhibiting at a trade show.  There are also intangible costs for not attending that should be considered, including:

• Meeting your customers in a “neutral” environment and having the opportunity to get to know them on a personal level.
• The value of having many conversations in a single place.
• Seeing what your competitors are talking about.
• Meeting and developing relationships with potential partners.
• The possible perception created by not being there.
• Hearing firsthand what the issues are that your clients and prospective clients are concerned about.

A perfect example relates to the last point and being in the “know” in regards to client and industry concerns. We know that difficult economic times, coupled with an overall emphasis on “Green” operations over the past several years,  has lead many of our clients to consider energy data management systems to help them understand and better control their energy costs.  We have worked to support that effort by sponsoring a recent Webinar presented by eSite Energy on “Energy Management Systems that Reduce Costs”  and have released a White Paper this week called “It’s all about the Data: Demystifying Energy Data Management.”  Additionally, we have partnered and integrated with companies like Mach Energy for mutual clients like Normandy Real Estate Partners to take their energy use spike alerts and turn them into actionable requests delivered to a building engineer.

All of these actions resulted from conversations and information we picked up attending industry events over the past year.

So, while the hard dollar questions certainly need to be answered and will continue to drive many of our decisions, don’t forget to consider and balance those costs against the harder to measure, but often equally important “soft benefits” of attending and participating in industry trade shows.

1. Google is a champion of individual liberties.
2. Only Apple truly cares about its customers and caters to their needs.
3. The Internet will connect everything everywhere taking data out of silos and increasing efficiency and liquidity