Building Energy Savings Starts on the Ground Floor

Around the country, building owners, facilities management professionals, and even portfolio managers are getting savvy about energy-saving technologies. But to get the most out of energy-saving strategies, you must ensure that the people directly responsible for carrying out those strategies — the building’s operations staff — have the right tools to do so.

As part of its energy-saving services for building owners and commercial businesses, ETS can provide your operations staff the tools needed to make your energy-saving strategies really work. Those tools include the Senzorz smartphone app and “wearable devices.” ETS also provides a client Web portal that can help building owners and executives develop energy-saving strategies that will make their buildings more profitable.

Senzorz and wearable devices

The Senzorz smartphone app gives operations personnel mobile access to real-time alerts and a dashboard view of the energy performance of their buildings. Behind the scenes, the buildings “wear” devices that monitor their vital systems. It’s basically Fitbit for buildings.

Just as people can wear Fitbit devices to track their activities and performance, buildings can wear devices — smart meters, smart sensors, and other smart building technologies — to track the activities and performance of their vital systems. These wearable devices gather energy management and other data. Operations staff can interact with those devices through the Senzorz smartphone app, which keeps them in touch with the needs of their buildings.

Monitoring detects operations issues

The Senzorz app’s dashboard empowers operations staff members by giving them the data needed to take ownership of the building’s energy performance. It can also alert them to potential problems. In one instance, the dashboard alerted a building’s operations staff about a thermostat that was reading 78 F even though it was set to 72 F. When they investigated, they discovered that the reading wasn’t caused by a faulty thermostat but rather a problem with the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system.

In another instance, building owners had smart sensors installed in a pool equipment room which was exposed to the outside air. They empowered the operations staff to take immediate action if the Senzorz app notified them that room’s temperature was below 35 F. The building owners didn’t want to be in the same predicament that some other building owners faced last year — a water pipe in a high-rise building burst from extreme cold temperatures. The resulting mess cost more than $1 million to clean up.

Real-time smart meter data even helped operations staff detect and resolve a broadband connectivity issue in a building. As it turned out, a problem in the Internet service provider’s network was causing brief interruptions in broadband connectivity.

As you can see, the Senzorz app and the wearable devices behind it have uses far beyond monitoring energy usage. Operations staff can use this dynamic duo to detect problems before widespread damage occurs and to better assess the effectiveness of equipment, energy operations, and even telecommunications operations in a building.

Client Web portal

ETS provides a client Web portal that allows business owners and executives to easily view real-time data on energy usage in each building in their property portfolio. In addition, they can use the portal’s full energy management dashboard to access smart meter analyses, smart load-control data, smart building sensor diagnostic data, battery storage updates, numerous reports (including ETS Fast Trak Savings reports), and alerts. With actionable data and the portal’s dynamic interface, building owners and management can execute energy-saving strategies that will make their buildings more profitable while reducing their carbon footprint.

Anytime, anywhere energy management

The client Web portal and the Senzorz smartphone app provide anytime, anywhere, one-stop smart building management tools for business owners, executives, and operations staff to embrace. Empowering operations staff is the key to a successful energy management strategy, which translates into reduced operations costs and higher net operating income for your building or portfolio.

[cta]Empower your operations staff to track your building’s energy usage. Contact ETS to learn more about our smart building services.[/cta]