Sustainability Impact to My Customers

Short Company Description

Over 4 million square feet of space and 15 parking garages the customer is a negative net zero consumer of electricity. To achieve this feat they have deployed an EBO building automation system, Building Advisor and Power Monitoring Expert solution.

Location:

USA

I am a

System Integrator

Segment Type

Commercial Real Estate

Company Size

0-50M euro

Is there someone in your organization who is most responsible for these results? If so, please share their name and email address.

Owner Contact: Gary Schlotzhauer C&C Group Account Manager: Darrell Brown

I have been supported by a Schneider Electric contact. If "Yes", please indicate the name of your Schneider Electric contact.

Travis Schneweis

1. Do you Strategize?

Yes

A. Does your customer have a decarbonization plan with milestones? If so, please share your roadmap/plan.

B. Have you or your customer completed Sustainability School? If so, please share the Sustainability School completion certificate

2. Do you Digitize?

Yes

A. Are you helping a customer deploy centralized utility data management and monitoring software for energy and carbon analysis and reporting?

Yes, we have deployed Building Advisor and have also integrated Power Management Expert into their existing EBO system

B. With your help, is a customer metering major energy loads to uncover opportunities to reduce energy consumption and emissions?

Yes, all buildings and parking garages are metered. Customer uses the meters to accurately invoice their tenants, verify utility invoices, ensure the electrical system is operating at peak performance and deliver quality power. The client was billing tenants per square foot for the energy used, now they are able to provide the tenant with an accurate bill with actual consumption. Tenants only pay for they electricity they use resulting in happier tenants and reduced vacancy rates. Customer has over 200 meters on the campus with 33 of those residing in the central plant alone. They are able to breakdown the power by building, building section and by floor. Another result of the increased efficiency is increasing the value of the property. As the value to operate the facility decreases the value of the property increases which is another benefit of the increased efficiency.

C. Are you helping a customer monitor energy efficiency and equipment performance to gain actionable insights?

Through PME the customer is able to monitor their energy efficiency and understand their power consumption. PME also gives them an immense amount of details that help the Owner diagnose machine problems that are commonly blamed on bad power. This is not only done for the Owner's equipment it is also a feature their tenants use to gain insight into their own equipment.

D. Are you enabling a customer to use power management and monitoring solutions to assess power quality and increase business resiliency and continuity?

The customer is using Power Management Expert. With the amount of detail available they are able to diagnose problems for their tenants. For example if a tenant has an issue with a piece of equipment they can show the power quality coming into the equipment which eliminates people blaming "dirty" power and forces them to find the problem with the equipment. The information is far more detailed than what one would normally receive from their utility and has actually helped the utility track down issues on their end.

E. On behalf of a customer, have you deployed innovations to maximize the efficiency and digitalization of their operations?

The entire facility is operated off an EBO architecture with integrated Power Monitoring Expert and Building Advisor. Using a single pane of glass the customer can see and control all 4 million square feet of space. Building Advisor allows the customer to focus on the critical issues first. By focusing on critical issues first they are able to prioritize service, so they are addressing problems before tenants ever know an issue is at hand. The prioritization of service has reduced their need for outside labor by 61% which has resulted in more than $700,000 a year savings. Since the deployment of Building Advisor the owner has seen a 65% reduction in temperature calls and complaints.

F. Have you implemented asset upgrades and modernization programs for a customer to optimize and increase the longevity of their plant equipment and avoid emissions ?

The original system was a I/A Niagara R2 system and we replaced with EBO without replacing the entire system. We have been able to provide the client with a modern system without the expense. Being backward compatible also saves on emissions as we have not had to use critical resources to build new components while disposing of old. This solution increases the longevity of the entire system and reduces the overall impact on our environment.

G. Have you embraced the digital integration of power and process for a customer as a way to minimize energy consumption while optimizing their process?

With Building Advisor we are able to provide an actionable list of items for our client's service team to address. Prior to the deployment of Building Advisor the client relied upon comfort complaints to dictate what was serviced. Now their process has completely changed. Building Advisor sends proactive information about either known issues or potential problems and the service team is able to investigate. The majority of the time the issue is fixed prior to any comfort complaint being logged resulting in happier tenants and reduced vacancy. Concerning the integration of PME to the BAS. The customer is not currently using the power data to make BAS decisions. We have presented an option to change sequences, so PME data could be used to adjust sequences during high demand times.

3. Do you Decarbonize?

Yes

A. Are you enabling a customer to use automation and energy management systems to control their equipment and systems?

We deployed a campus wide (approximately 4,000,000 square feet) EBO system that controls everything from their HVAC, to lighting and even water fountains. The BAS provides the owner with a campus-wide perspective on how the systems are operating as a whole. This visibility allows them to make strategic decisions operating the system thus reducing/controlling their electrical consumption and electrical demand. The system touches just about every piece of equipment down to the UPS', so when an issue does arise they have the insight as to what is going on allowing them to quickly fix the issue which saves in contract labor expenses.

B. With your help, has a customer implemented practices that have increased their energy efficiency?

Building Advisor was deployed in 2020 and since the deployment the customer has saved over $1.5 million per year in electrical costs and has reduced over 10,000 tons from their carbon footprint. To put this in perspective this is a 16% reduction in annual energy savings and is equivalent to avoiding over 10 million gallons of gas. The central plant alone has reduced its energy consumption by more than 18%. Another benefit of Building Advisor it has provided additional time for the central plant operators to focus on running the central plant. The new ownership has empowered the operations team to run the plant in an efficient manner, but they needed to free up time to do so. Building Advisor allows them more time to focus on the efficient operation of the plant and not focus on the hot/cold calls as Building Advisor is proactively addressing those problems.

C. Are you enabling a customer to use renewables (PPAs, EACs, or onsite generation) for at least a portion of their energy needs? What percentage of their electricity is covered by renewables?

Yes, the customer is a producer of energy from windfarms in Western KS. The customer actually produces more wind power than they consume making them a negative net zero facility in their electrical consumption.

D. To minimize Scope 2 emissions, have you helped a customer source energy through offsite renewable energy power purchase agreements or Energy Attribute Certificates?

Yes, see answer in question C above.

E. With your help, is a customer using electricity from onsite renewable energy generation to reduce Scope 2 emissions?

NO

F. Have you implemented energy storage for a customer?  Elaborate.

No

G. Have you equipped a customer to aggregate distributed generation assets to maximize economic value and grid impact?

No, all power consumed is generated from off site wind energy. The wind energy produced is more than they consume in a year therefore making them a negative net zero environment.

H. Are you helping a customer reduce carbon emissions by focusing on energy efficiency and decarbonization in their operations?

Yes, see answer in item 3B.

I. With your help, has a customer reduced their carbon footprint through modernization projects that focus on energy efficiency and decarbonization?

Yes, see answer in item 3B for carbon reduction amounts. Modernization items include complete upgrade of their building automation system to EBO, installation and integration of Power Monitoring Expert and Building Advisor into their EBO system.

J. Have you helped a customer implement practices to increase energy efficiency in their operations?

Yes, see answer in item 3B.

K. Have you helped a customer create a commitment program with their suppliers to reduce Scope 3 emissions?

No

L. With your help, has a customer adopted a commitment program with their upstream suppliers and downstream distribution partners to track and reduce Scope 3 emissions?

No

M. Have you enabled a customer to use digital modeling to capture embodied carbon data from materials and equipment?

No

N. Have you helped a customer incorporate electric vehicle charging infrastructure for fleets, employees, and/or customers into their operations? 

Yes, the customer has installed EV charging stations throughout the campus for a total of 15 EV chargers with two (2) ports a piece, so they can accommodate up to 30 cars at one time. Since 2020 they have seen a 150% increase in the use of their EV stations. The amount of GHG saved in this same time period could power over 26 homes electricity use for one year. Over the lifetime of the chargers they have avoided 234, 515 kg of GHG which is like planting 6,013 trees and letting them grow for 10 years.

O. With your guidance, has a customer converted some of their fleet to electric vehicles?

Each of the 15 parking garages on site have had EV chargers installed. Each parking garage has dedicated electrical so the addition of EV chargers is seamless. We monitor the need for additional chargers via a front end dashboard that we help them navigate.

P. Have you enabled a customer to electrify some of their operations to reduce Scope 1 emissions and enable use of renewables to shrink their carbon footprint? What percentage of your customer's operations have been electrified?

The entire facility is run on electric. Other than the diesel required for backup power the facility burns a minimal amount of natural gas in their cooking/restaurant operations.

Q. Have you advised a customer to purchase low-embodied carbon materials and equipment?

The customer is very eco-conscience on their own. They are always looking for environmental friendly products/solutions.

R. With your help, is a customer using condition-based maintenance to extend equipment life, delay the purchase of new equipment, and reduce the associated embodied carbon?

Yes, if something is operating efficiently they are running the equipment until either the maintenance becomes difficult because of obsolete parts or the equipment dies. They are not replacing equipment because the "useful life" is approaching or has expired. A great example of this is the BAS. We kept all lower level controllers in place and only replaced the network level controllers. Taking this approached saved having to use new resources to produce new controllers as well as reduced landfill waste for having to dispose of the old controllers.

S. Based on your advice, is a customer purchasing carbon offsets to balance any residual Scope 1 and 3 emissions?

Customer is purchasing wind energy from wind farms in Western Kansas resulting in net zero in electric consumption.

T. Are you helping a customer reduce water usage through improved operations and a focus on efficiency? 

The largest water consumer in the facility is the chilled water system for the HVAC system. We monitor and track all the water consumption, so we can run the central plant as efficient as possible. Whenever possible free cooling is used and the chillers are taken offline. The customer harvests all rain fall and condensate, returning it to on site retention ponds resulting in no potable water being used in their irrigation activities. The result is an estimated 30 million gallons of water saved each year.

U. Have you enabled a customer to monitor and adjust water usage based on water availability risks and forecasts? 

No

V. Have you helped a customer create optimization programs for clean-in-place operations, e.g., water and wastewater treatment and recovery programs, focused on efficiency? 

No

W. With your help, is a customer procuring circular materials and minimizing waste in their operations?

No

X. Have you helped a customer develop a plan to move their fossil energy-based processes to electrification?

As we mentioned earlier the entire facility is already electrified, so very little fossil fuel is used in operating the facility.

Y(i). Have you helped a customer deploy innovations or circularity business models? Please select all that apply:

• Deployed innovations to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions of your operations
• Deployed innovations to replace energy sources with renewables
• Deployed innovations to reduce water usage

Y(ii). What are the results of these innovations?

To summarize the results. The customer is a negative net zero consumer of electricity as they produce more wind energy than they consume. Since the inception of Building Advisor the prioritization of service has reduced their need for outside labor by 61% which has resulted in more than $700,000 a year savings. Another result of the deployment of Building Advisor, the owner has seen a 65% reduction in temperature calls and complaints. As a result of the installation of EBO, PME and Building Advisor the customer has saved over $1.5 million per year in electrical costs and has reduced over 10,000 tons from their carbon footprint. To put this in perspective this is a 16% reduction in annual energy savings and is equivalent to avoiding over 10 million gallons of gas. The central plant alone has reduced its energy consumption by more than 18%. All rain water and condensate water is harvested to on site detention ponds resulting in more than 30 million gallons of water saved each year. EV chargers are installed throughout thus avoiding 234, 515 kg of GHG which is like planting 6,013 trees and letting them grow for 10 years.

Additional documents (if any)

Translation (when applicable)