From Complex to Clear: The Power of Customized Energy Reports

Facility teams are constantly challenged to do more with less – a trend that won’t disappear anytime soon.

With ever more to do and ever less to do it with, it's critical that teams find tactical ways to use the tools they already have. (”tactools”? “tacticools”? No?)

A tactic that may be both easier and more fruitful than you thought is to customize your data to address your main concerns in a format that works for your crew. One utiliVisor client approached us a few months ago with just such a request. Here’s how one big city medical campus is making it easier for plant operators to see what they need to see exactly the way they want to see it.

Tailoring Your Data to Your Game Plan

Facility operations is a team sport, and any winning game plan for that team involves good handoffs – from one team member to another and from one day to another. Fast access to energy consumption numbers and run hours is essential to making good decisions about what equipment to operate in order to hit your efficiency targets.

Clarity and quick visibility are also key to human efficiency, which is why our healthcare client wanted to customize their data delivery. The energy plant for this campus operates seven buildings, with steam and gas turbines, electric and steam chillers, four chiller plants, and a cogen plant.

To run a system this complex, the team needs to see the status of key pieces quickly and regularly. Fast feedback helps them make decisions that pay off in terms of both budget and staff time.

Of course, the team has 24/7/365 access to all their meter data. But with such a large and complicated system, tracking down key daily values is time they'd rather put into other tasks. Instead, the team decided to have a report delivered every morning to kick off the day's planning. Abridged (and value-redacted) versions of how this team organizes their daily report are shown below.

A priority for this location is to maximize the effectiveness of its cogeneration plant. Ensuring the steam produced from the cogen is consumed in the most economical way is critical for maximizing overall efficiency. In order to accomplish this goal, a deep understanding of the utility rates, steam chiller sequencing, and visibility to the operational data is crucial.

Feed water metrics (Fig. 2) are also key to operating this system well. How much condensate is being returned and in what condition? Is the return temp too low and now you have to heat that water back up? If you’re making 10,000 pounds of steam, are you getting back 9,000 pounds of water or 6,000? Do you have both a heat loss issue AND a water loss issue?

Netting Clear Objectives & Clear Communications

The most helpful thing about this daily report is that it's tailored for exactly what the energy plant operators need to know and nothing else. Now the team can focus on the most expensive operational equipment and optimize for today's circumstances.

For example, a site goal is to use all cogen plant steam every day, and any excess generated steam goes out a metered vent. The fact that the vent meter measured zero confirms that the previous day's cogen maximization efforts were successful. Clarity on what works and what doesn't is a gift beyond measure.