How Energy Data Helped a Transit Leader Become an Environmental Leader
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“Build Smart.” It’s the message surrounding Executive Order 88, a law mandated in New York City that’s challenging the energy efficiency of facilities no matter what industry — or what age.
Behind the Meter
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) has been critical to the tristate area for nearly 100 years. Founded in 1921, it spans 1,500 square miles of public transportation, including 1,700 energy and water meters that serve tenants within this district.
Servicing these meters is expensive, and until recently the Port Authority monitored each one manually — just like the old days.
But new legislation is making today’s energy consumers more sophisticated, inspiring them to drill down into these cost centers and identify opportunities for efficiency, especially in meter reading. Commercial buildings and industrial facilities in the United States spend $400 billion on energy every year, and managing these costs can be complex and time consuming. New York’s premier transit system is no exception.
With this new environmental policy in place, New York’s most historic infrastructure has an opportunity to help the city reach a historic conservation goal. To that end, PANYNJ sought real-time metering and automated invoice processing, giving its properties a “smart” energy management system that uses data to reduce power usage and maximize cost recovery. After all, airports, bridges and terminals all use resources at different paces, loads and times of day; automating this process offers tremendous potential.
Sustainability on Platform
SourceOne, a team of energy experts at Veolia North America, works with leading organizations to monitor customers’ energy consumption in real time to identify data anomalies, mitigate billing errors, ensure appropriate rates and provide forecasting reports and feedback on energy budgeting. At the core of this solution is EMsys, a unique web-based Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) designed by SourceOne whose user interface collects and reports energy data from sub-meters, building management systems and utility invoices on a central dashboard.
Today, the Port Authority leverages this platform to make their extensive meter portfolio easier to understand. Through this integration, they’re able to identify trends in power use from the last five years of invoices to reveal new metering needs, helping every commercial tenant in their portfolio become more resourceful. PANYNJ now collects data on 1,000 energy accounts across 200 assets that they can turn into long-term savings, bringing New York much closer to their efficiency goals over the next 10 years.
EMsys can integrate complex allocation models to comply with occupant leases, varying tariffs, utility rates and benchmarking ordinances, including integration into ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager®, an online benchmarking tool. Clients like PANYNJ can open the EMsys dashboard to view hourly, daily, weekly or monthly historical data for a given site, customer class or load type — and review cost recovery and savings over time.
World-Class Software Meets Industrial Expertise
EMsys is unique in that it was designed and developed alongside utility management professionals with decades of experience solving challenges in energy, water and waste. But when paired with industry-leading customers, these energy management solutions set a new standard of sustainability for the community as a whole. SourceOne’s team of professional engineers actively works together with each customer to ensure the solution is configured to meet the unique end goal of its user — whether it’s recovering expenses, allocating prices, streamlining invoice payment processes, reducing supplier costs or actively monitoring usage to identify energy conservation measures.
SourceOne contributes to the management of more than $1 billion in annual utility bills for several of the largest facility owners and managers in the United States. EMsys customers include municipalities, universities, hospitals and data centers. One thing they all have in common: They all want to “build smart” — reducing energy costs and ensuring sustainability for the future.
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