An Interview with the Columbia University Facility Team
Dive into our discussion with Columbia University's operational team on advancing submetering in the Manhattanville campus. Discover how data-driven insights are empowering sustainability efforts, optimizing building systems, and fostering a culture of efficiency across the university.Video Transcription
The Value of Submetering
[00:00:03] Manhattanville had a bunch of forward thinking with respect to submetering.
[00:00:07] I believe 193 thermal and electric meters across 1.9 million square feet. The final campus build out, it's gonna be roughly 6.9 million square feet.
[00:00:19] If we implement various ECM activities in the building, it's incredibly valuable as a tool to allow us to stay on top of the various things we're going to do to reach our targets and our goals.
[00:00:33] Instead of guessing, now that we can see.
What was the motivation for submetering Manhattanville?
[00:00:35] My motivation is to show how we're running the plant in the facility so we can prove to other facilities and also to the upper management that we're doing a pretty good job of running the system as efficiently as possible. Having proof of that, actually putting it on data pivot tables so everybody can see what was going on. It helps out a lot to say, "Hey, we're doing a great job." And you can show that to your employees how we compare to other facilities.
The utiliVisor Difference
[00:01:04] That's where the relationship with utiliVisor is, where you come in, the validation of the metering itself. Going back, is it internal with ourselves of our data collection or is it the actual meter the issue? So there's this collaboration with human beings, not with a machine saying, "Hey, there's an error."
What is the value of submetering data?
[00:01:25] Bringing this data back to every different group that we can find will have a use for it. This can help so many different people and so many different processes. You just need to actually look through it and figure out, what are your goals? What are your KPIs? And then start actually making actionable change to reach those goals.