Using Information Technology to Improve Energy Use and Building Costs
“Energy-Smart Buildings,” a white paper recently published by Microsoft in collaboration with global management, technology and outsourcing consulting company Accenture, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, details the results of a pilot program aimed at using technology to improve building energy efficiency.
Researchers at Microsoft’s Redmond, WA corporate campus, where the program was conducted, determined that information technology and software can provide significant improvements in building energy efficiency, and that capital-intensive retrofits are not the sole means to achieve such improvements.
Smart building applications that added analytical software on top of existing building management systems were evaluated for energy savings in three specific ways during the initial phase of the program.
- Enabling the timely detection and diagnosis of faults in building equipment so that problems can be addressed quickly
- Prioritizing the many alarm notifications generated by existing building systems so that engineers can focus on the most critical events
- Systematically tracking building energy consumption and performance over time while changing the behavior of building occupants with visual dashboards and benchmarks
Results of the study indicated that a smart building solution can be established with an upfront investment of less than 10% of annual energy expenditure and an expected payback period of less than two years.
