Using Real-Time Energy Data to Cure Hospital Energy Waste

Located in the most densely populated borough in New York City, NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital is committed to the pursuit of sustainable operations. To meet its goals of minimizing environmental impact, the hospital invested in building a best-in-class real-time energy management program and brought utiliVisor on board to oversee the chilled water plant and chilled water distribution for its 338,424-square-foot facility. The hospital was particularly interested in utiliVisor for its four decades of experience in HVAC efficiency for hospitals, universities, and commercial real estate. The hospital’s immediate goal was to reduce chilled water costs by 12%–20% via operational improvements of existing systems. What the facility lacked was the visibility into its systems to know what changes to make and to evaluate the impact of those changes.

utiliVisor’s real-time energy monitoring system is a web-based, networked solution of submeters and data collectors built on open standards. The system collects data in five-minute intervals and harmonizes the data from throughout the facility to provide a holistic understanding of operations as well as monitoring of equipment error states and threshold alerts.

For NYU Langone, utiliVisor developed a secure interface with the CBAS building management system to monitor 473 points across the facility. utiliVisor was able to make use of the building's existing data capabilities to set up a data push directly from the current equipment, without bringing in additional hardware. Now, utiliVisor’s engineering, rate, and meter experts review the site’s data daily and analyze it regularly to provide actionable insights about operational efficiencies.

In just the first of a five-year service contract, utiliVisor made nine main recommendations based on the RTEM data, ranging from reducing the chilled water pump minimum speed to 12 Hz to resetting air handler schedules to be altered seasonally. The implementation of these changes saves the facility 382,455 kWh, or $57,369, annually.

According to the hospital, the most significant benefit of utiliVisor’s system was the comprehensive review of equipment performance and system operating costs on a real-time basis. Experienced engineers analyze the data daily to optimize central energy plant performance, helping develop new operating strategies. utiliVisor’s Operations Center tracked real-time data, system performance, and system alerts based on set operating thresholds and performance criteria. System savings are documented and reported on a monthly basis. They are also compared to the base year’s operating costs (with weather normalization) to track attained savings over time.