Starving the Energy Monster There are one and a half million commercial buildings in the U.S. Less than ten percent of them have energy management systems. Technology from a new Siemens company in Austin, Texas has what it takes to steadily ramp down this huge sector s appetite for energy. Article Reprint Answers for infrastructure.
Although high-profile measures to slow global warming seem to be eternally stuck in neutral, a combination of technology and market forces offers the potential of putting a significant dent in energy demand and carbon dioxide emissions in the United States. According to a 2009 McKinsey report entitled Unlocking Energy Efficiency in the U.S. Economy, the commercial sector, which includes everything from office and retail buildings to hotels, restaurants and warehouses, will account for 20 percent of all the energy used in the U.S. by 2020, or about 20 quadrillion BTUs of primary energy. But even as average energy demand per square foot continues to grow at 1.5 percent per year throughout this vast sector, the customers of an Austin, Texas start-up company provides enterprise-level energy management for chains of mid-sized retail facilities such as health clubs, supermarkets and branch banks are demonstrating that a completely different course is possible. In spite of the rising cost of energy, their electric bills have steadily headed south typically between 15 and 30 percent over a 28 to 36 month period, resulting in an extremely rapid return on investment. Seeing a perfect match with its market leading position in the automation and energy optimization of very large buildings such as hospitals, office towers and stadiums, Siemens Building Technologies (SBT) acquired the Austin startup then known as Site Controls in late 2010. Now an SBT unit known as Retail & Commercial Systems (RCS), the company is helping a wide range of customers with sites across the United States and Canada not only to reduce their energy bills, but to hone their facility intelligence and come up with smart grid solutions. Intensive Care for Stores RCS specializes in chains of stores in which the buildings are essentially the same. In each case, it outfits the heating and cooling units in customer facilities with sensors designed to continuously monitor equipment performance, equips customer areas with wall-mounted carbon dioxide sensors as a proxy for occupancy detection a key parameter in determining how much cooling is needed on a real-time basis and connects thermostats and lighting controls to a control box with its own Linux-based computer and embedded Web server. Depending on the customer, other major systems such as refrigeration units, trash compactors, signage, rooftop solar power equipment, and electric vehicle charging stations can also be equipped with sensors. Each store s control box interrogates its sensors every sixty seconds and delivers a condition report to the chain operator s headquarters every two hours. What s more, every four hours, a cloud-based RCS data management center generates a prioritized list of the specific systems in a chain operator s entire fleet of stores that require immediate service. It s like monitoring patients in an intensive care unit, says RCS General Manager Marcus Boerkei. Our software keeps an eye on each store s energyrelated vital signs, identifies equipment that is not operating at specified levels, prioritizes problems, and generates actionable information that focuses the customer s attention on those stores that need help. Enterprise-wide Overview Adds RCS Business Development Director Dan Kubala, Until we came to this market, no one had the tools to do this sort of thing. Typically, our customers have a number of cooling units on the roof, all supplying a common sales area think
By continuously monitoring all major electrical systems in a chain store s outlets, Siemens Retail and Commercial System is helping major operators such as Michaels to steadily reduce their electric bills. big box store. If one malfunctions, it may actually be pumping hot air into the store, forcing the other units to work even harder. But without the ability to automatically identify such situations, no one notices, except that energy bills just keep climbing. Even worse, he says, are technicians who go to the roof, do little or nothing, and bill a store for their services. Without remote sensing, there is no mechanism to verify whether a job was actually done, he says. Careless store managers can also be a problem. What we absolutely want to avoid, says Kubala, is the manager who turns the thermostat down to 66 on a hot day and then leaves it there for the entire summer. With our system, corporate energy managers receive regular updates on temperature settings across their entire enterprise, enabling them to prevent this behavior. In view of these and other causes of locally-induced energy waste, RCS software allows headquarters to set each store s temperature and lighting levels and coordinate these levels with store operating hours, weekend and holiday peaks, and seasonal changes. What s more, as RCS learns from best practices, it remotely deploys new, customer-approved capabilities across the entire enterprise as a free service. Thanks to cloud-based data management and continuous data harvesting, RCS software also helps chain operators to, for instance, identify which cooling systems work best in which climates, and which ones have the best service and efficiency records. All of this information helps to optimize functions in existing facilities and supports the planning of new facilities, says Boerkei. It also allows a customer to look at fleet performance, compare it year on year, and even compare how his fleet is doing compared to the industry average in real time. Toward Virtual Power Plants In addition to steadily driving down chain operators energy costs and providing business intelligence, RCS helps its customers to make the most of oscillating electricity prices and receive cash from utilities for reducing electricity demand during peak periods. The company s SureGrid intelligent load management (ILM) technology, which is a standard part of its solution, essentially turns a building into a fully automated system that can shed demand in response to market signals from a utility, says Borekei. If, for instance, the price per kwh jumps from 6 cents to 13 cents, the building can power down a range of functions that have previously been agreed to by the customer depending on circumstances. As RCS adds more and more buildings to the thousands it already controls, the aggregate effect of reduced demand can have a significant impact on local utilities. Incentivised by contracts that pay utility customers for each kw they shed below a predefined minimum, so many buildings already participate that utilities are able to avoid switching on so-called peaking plants. The result is that aggreations of RCS-equipped buildings already participing in a demandresponse event start to look like virtual power plants, says Boerkei. Normally, however, some buildings would be unable to reduce demand think of a popular restaurant on a Friday night, for instance and would be personalized with a very high electricity prices. With this in mind, RCS bids the aggregate load of its buildings to the utility. That way the individual site can do what it needs to do. It s like a diversified stock portfolio, says Boerkei. We negotiate with our customers and split the rewards. As RCS expands into more and more chains of buildings, there are likely to be plenty of rewards particularly for the environment.
Michaels Stores: The Art of Achieving More with Less Robin Moore, Vice President for Store Development and Construction at Michaels (left). With over 1,000 stores in North America, Michaels is the largest retailer of arts, crafts, and associated merchandise in the U.S. It is also one of a small but growing number of major U.S. companies to implement consistent policies designed to improve its bottom line through reduced energy use. Energy is our second highest line item expense behind labor, says Robin Moore, Vice President for Store Development and Construction at Michaels. With this in mind, the company has equipped almost all stores with Siemens RCS energy management platform. The result, according to Moore, has been spectacular. Through our initial energy management system deployment and continuous improvements with Siemens Client Services group, we have saved approximately 25 percent. Recently deployed extensions take those savings even further. And that has been achieved in spite of regular electricity rate increases. Having achieved such dramatic savings, you might think that further improvements would be tough to realize. That s true, says RCS General Manager Marcus Boerkei. But we have a rapid innovation cycle that allows us to generate new apps every one to three months. One recently-introduced improvement is the use of so-called psychrometric data. That idea, he explains, is to take both temperature and humidity into account. For instance, if the outside air becomes dryer, the temperature set points in a store will automatically adjust upwards by 1.5 to 2 ºF without producing any noticeable difference for shoppers but saving even more energy. Michaels expects to shave its electric bills even further in the future. One major item we are looking forward to, says Moore, is having Siemens automate lighting levels throughout our fleet. When you add up all the benefits of our energy management system, shes adds, I just can t imagine why other retailers are not doing what we are doing. The value that we have gotten out of our partnership with Siemens has been wonderful. The payback is there. Chain store operators typically have hundreds of nearly identical outlets. When outfitted with sensors and a Web-based Siemens control box, each store s electrical systems (above left) can be remotely monitored. Siemens software at the customer s headquarters uses the information to identify energy-related anomalies and generate prioritized maintenance reports. In North America, lighting and heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC) are major energy users (above right).
Siemens Industry, Inc. Infrastructure & Cities Sector Building Technologies Division Retail & Commercial Systems 9225 Bee Cave Road, Bldg. B, Ste. 100 Austin, Texas 78733 Tel: (877) 306-9400 Fax: (512) 306-9445 All rights reserved. Printed in USA XXX-XXX 2012 Siemens Industry, Inc. Answers for infrastructure. Our world is undergoing changes that force us to think in new ways: demographic change, urbanization, global warming, and resource shortages. Maximum efficiency has top priority and not only where energy is concerned. In addition, we need to increase comfort for the well-being of users. Also, our need for safety and security is constantly growing. For our customers, success is defined by how well they manage these challenges. Siemens has the answers. We are the preferred partner for energy-efficient, safe, and secure buildings and infrastructure.