What is it?

We manage the City’s participation in energy management programs, including demand response and load management, which help the City save money and resources. These programs ask the City to reduce its energy consumption at key times throughout the year, when demand is at its highest. To learn more about how it works, visit our blog.

Implementation

We work with facilities management in a dozen City-owned facilities to implement plans to reduce electricity use during these events.

Results

Between the summers of 2014 and 2019, the City has earned a total of approximately $1.8 million and has saved millions in avoided energy costs.

What is it?

This program monitors building activity for the City’s four largest downtown buildings, called the Quadplex.

Our office looks at real-time energy consumption in these buildings to make sure they are operating as planned and they are as energy-efficient as possible. We then:

• Help troubleshoot building controls.
• Highlight operations practices that need attention.

Implementation

The Municipal Energy Office worked in partnership with the Office of Innovation and Technology (OIT) to contract services for a building monitoring platform. This system will ultimately support a dozen or more of the City’s mid- to large-size facilities that use building automation systems (BAS) to control heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, major equipment and related building systems. The goal of the building monitoring software is to provide data and analytics on specific building operations. These analytics will help operators run buildings more efficiently, use less energy, and improve tenant comfort.

Results

Facility managers now take a closer look at set-back schedules and holiday schedules as a result of building monitoring. The Municipal Energy Office is looking forward to sharing more specific analytics with facility managers and building operators to affect deeper change.