{"id":1004287646,"date":"2018-12-20T08:24:03","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T16:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/?p=1004287646"},"modified":"2022-12-09T01:14:17","modified_gmt":"2022-12-09T09:14:17","slug":"energy-management-and-iot-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/energy-management-and-iot-solutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Energy Management and IoT Solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Paul Rosta<\/p>\n

\"\"

Christy Cannon, Yardi Energy<\/p><\/div>\n

In the second half of a wide-ranging interview with CPE, Yardi Energy’s Christy Cannon offers insights on how property operators can apply new and established IoT solutions.  She also offers a glimpse of how technology service providers are preparing for future challenges.  <\/p>\n

Read part one<\/a> of the interview from the November edition of CPE Energy Report.<\/p>\n

What <\/strong>kinds of solutions are available today for owners and managers? Any promising products that have become available in the past year or so?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In terms of IoT, your imagination is the limit.  Pair IoT with AI or personal apps, and you have some awe-inspiring solutions and products on the market. <\/p>\n

I have to give a shout-out to CBRE.  I attended the IFMA conference a couple of months ago and Brennan McReynolds from CBRE talked about the whole workplace experience, and how CBRE has recently released a phone App called \u201cCBRE 360\u201d that ties in all aspects of an employee\u2019s work life and some from outside the workplace to help employees stay on focused on work tasks and be more effective.  It had some of the work functions you would expect like interactive floor maps with walking turn-by-turn directions to an office or reserving conference rooms. <\/p>\n

Being able to send your exact location to co-workers also seemed helpful.  I get lost in my company\u2019s offices all the time that I don\u2019t visit often.  But the CBRE app also had some functions you wouldn\u2019t expect, like managing concierge services offered by the building.  Imagine being able to send your grocery shopping list for someone else to do, ordering your car washed, or having someone pick up your dry cleaning.  The employee can easily and efficiently manage multiple aspects of their life with this one phone app which helps them focus on work while at work.  <\/p>\n

More directly related to building operations, we\u2019re seeing integrated systems that link data in new ways, pulling more intelligence from the same data sets.  An example would be the linking of monthly utility bills and real-time consumption data.  Suppose you are an asset manager looking into utility budget variances for your VP.  You can see your electric cost increased by 30 percent in June, but you don\u2019t know why.  You can drill into a graph online, all the way to the meter level, to easily see which meter caused the cost spike. <\/p>\n

Click on a link by the meter\u2019s utility bill image, and suddenly you are looking at consumption 15-minute interval data for that meter, for that service period.  You can now easily see exactly when the consumption spike occurred\u2014maybe on Monday afternoon at 2:30 three weeks ago, and work with the facility manager to address it.  Let\u2019s extend this example several months down the road.  Let\u2019s say your facility manager took action and made an operational change.  Wouldn\u2019t it be great to report the savings related to that change? <\/p>\n

Dollars and Sense<\/h2>\n
\"\"

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n

This integration also ties your financial data from utility bills to your operational data on utility consumption saved.  You\u2019d probably get a different reaction from your CFO if you reported a savings of $55,000 versus 460 megawatt-hours.  Utility units of measure have no meaning at the C-level, but dollars and cents is the one language everyone speaks.  Now you can just print out a report with both numbers.  Previously, you\u2019d have to manually track back the costs per unit for each month, apply to the saved consumption after you calculated that was, and add it all together, hoping you got it right.<\/p>\n

Another example would be the simplification of the operator\u2019s software experience.  Most of our clients have very diverse portfolios with big buildings, small buildings, some buildings with central chiller plants, some buildings with  rooftop units.  Some buildings have HVAC optimization; some buildings have only real-time metering or fault detection and diagnostics or central control; and some buildings have three out of the four.  Usually all these products for the different buildings would be managed by different point solutions in different portals.  One complaint I commonly hear from clients is that they have too many portals to log into on a daily basis. <\/p>\n

How about pulling all those products into a single portal?  Now you can go to one place to manage your entire portfolio, see all your faults and alerts, regardless of product, and view a dashboard of highest building utility users and which ones need attention.  Whether it\u2019s a big building with a chiller plant using HVAC optimization, or a small building with rooftop units using central control, they both can be compared on a consumption by square foot basis, they both can have their faults and alerts listed.  The client shouldn\u2019t have to care about which specific technology is installed in which building.  They just go to one place for everything.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve pointed out that new security challenges will emerge as artificial intelligence and the IoT evolve. What are consultants and service providers like Yardi Energy doing today to prepare for what\u2019s on the horizon?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Taking advantage of IoT to maximize its value is definitely in the forefront, especially for facilities management.  With AI and IoT we can automate processes that were previously very painfully manual.  Let\u2019s look at a specific example\u2014after-hours HVAC requests from tenants.  This is a common service.  Here\u2019s how it will work in the near future: We have tenants who make an after-hours HVAC request through a tenant portal. The portal sends a schedule change to the building automation system, then a charge is posted to the tenant ledger. To complete the process, accounting puts a fee on the tenant\u2019s next bill, which they pay on the tenant portal. <\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n

All of this happens with no human interaction beyond the tenant requesting HVAC after hours on the portal and then paying the resulting charges.  What didn\u2019t occur in this process?  The facility manager isn\u2019t getting a call and then having to make a change to the schedule in the building automation system manually.  Also, the facility manager didn\u2019t have to slip a piece of paper to accounting or send an email with a list of all the tenants who requested after-hours HVAC.  And the accountant didn\u2019t have to enter it in the system for each tenant.<\/p>\n

Here is another example.  Let’s say that fault detection and diagnostics in the building automation system sends a fault alert to the facility manager.  That fault alert also automatically creates a work order and, depending on the fault, may also trigger something to be ordered from an integrated marketplace.  A purchase order is sent to the accounting system, and the product is ordered and shipped to the site. <\/p>\n

Once maintenance completes the necessary tasks to resolve the fault, the work order is completed.  What didn\u2019t happen?  The facility manager doesn\u2019t have to submit a request to accounting for a purchase order.  Nor does the facility manager have to manually create a work order.  And neither accounting nor facilities management have to go online to place an order.  As we remove humans from these simple manual processes, we give them the bandwidth to focus on other more complex activities.  This level of enterprise solution is only available because of the proliferation of the IoT, combined with AI and the connectivity of systems.<\/p>\n

Chain Reaction<\/h2>\n

Unfortunately, however, it\u2019s not all fun and games.  We are also keeping an eye on potential solutions to the issues IoT may create down the road, focusing on security and network constraints.  Blockchain is one of those technologies we\u2019re tracking.  It\u2019s a new kind of database technology.  With blockchain, digital information is distributed, not copied.  Think of Google Docs versus Microsoft Office. <\/p>\n

Ever tried to have two people work on the same Microsoft Word document at the same time?  It can\u2019t be done.  What happens when that one document is accidentally deleted?  It\u2019s gone forever.  However, I can delete my document in Google docs, but anyone else who was also working on it also has the same document.  Storing blocks of identical information across a network eliminates single point of failures. <\/p>\n

By now, you may be asking yourself:  \u201cBut then there are more copies that can accessed. Haven\u2019t I increased my risk?\u201d  No, because currently trust is also controlled in a central location\u2014that wheel hub I mentioned.  The blockchain model totally changes the current structure of a central trust authority in a wheel hub by decentralizing everything.  What I mean is that all participants in a blockchain have to verify a transaction before it is accepted as legitimate.  To put it simply, blockchain makes the cost of the computer resources too high to beat it.  Now a network can\u2019t be compromised by a single device.<\/p>\n

However, like anything else, you need to know when it\u2019s appropriate to employ.  There will always still be a need for data to be collected in a central location.  But in applications where that\u2019s not a requirement, blockchain could significantly cut down on processing and storage while increasing security in situations that don\u2019t. Some elements of building automation would be examples, such a lighting system. <\/p>\n

It may be monitoring partial natural light and balancing the light levels with artificial light, communicating with electric lights to adjust levels as appropriate.  In this case, there isn\u2019t a benefit to a central hub, so blockchain may be a good application.  It\u2019s all about reducing risk how you can, where you can.  As long as there are bad guys, there are good guys like Yardi working to create new efficiencies while protecting our client\u2019s business interests.<\/p>\n

Christy Cannon is an account executive at Yardi Energy and holds the Certified Energy Manager (CEM) designation from the Association of Energy Engineers.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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