You can’t manage building energy use if you don’t measure it

Building operational practices all have an impact on the total energy used in a building and the resulting cost of that energy.

For the last twelve years, energy use in many public buildings across the County has been tracked for each of the Garfield Clean Energy Collaborative (GCE) members to support saving energy and money on their utility bills. Garfield Clean Energy is a government collaborative founded in 2012. GCE’s membership consists of every municipality in Garfield County, Garfield County government, Colorado Mountain College, and the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority. Garfield County Libraries and Holy Cross Energy are affiliate members.

All GCE partners get access to a program called Advanced Energy Management (AEM), to track energy use in their facilities. AEM makes energy use visible, empowers organizations to optimize it, eliminate waste, generate cost savings, and reduce carbon emissions. This program is foundational for effectively managing energy use in commercial buildings.

The current GCE AEM database includes historical utility bills for over 90 facilities and 200 utility accounts. The annual energy costs for these over 90 facilities is more than $3.3 million. In addition to historical usage, over 35 facilities have 15-minute interval data reads (IDR) on the amount of electricity the facility uses. This useful data system empowers facility managers to quickly identify issues and operate their buildings more efficiently.

Colorado Mountain College (CMC) is utilizing AEM’s user-friendly energy information to actively track and manage the energy use in the buildings at each campus. Those include each location in Garfield County: Glenwood Springs, Spring Valley, Carbondale, and Rifle; as well as the campuses in Aspen, Edwards, Dillon, Steamboat Springs, Breckenridge, and Leadville.

CMC’s stated goal is to be carbon neutral by 2050. The ability to track energy-related usage and cost data in its commercial and public buildings is critical for overall cost savings as well as to meet GHG emissions reduction goals. In support of achieving this goal, CMC is launching a new AEM pilot project to build an energy conservation culture that combines education with the facilities department of each building, expanding the classroom to be the facility and entire campus.

Leadership at CMC is committed to making the integration of facilities operation and education a successful workforce development model not only for CMC, but for other higher education campuses across the country.

This project is focused on empowering facility operators and technicians to make sustainable adjustments to how the buildings run, improving efficiency. It also engages the building occupants in supporting and enacting energy-efficient behaviors while using the College’s buildings.

The Advanced Energy Management system is also being implemented by the Roaring Fork School District (RFSD). This summer the District kicked off a pilot program utilizing the AEM program. The District achieved over $1,000 per week in energy cost reductions during the months of July and August. RFSD’s AEM program is just beginning. With early success during the summer, the program is on track to continue reducing energy costs.

The AEM program can support government and commercial buildings in compliance with the State of Colorado’s benchmarking, or energy tracking, requirements for large buildings. It can also facilitate the energy use reductions that will be required by the State in the next few years.

Energy efficiency is the “first fuel” in the clean energy transition. Utility companies are progressing towards cleaner energy and increasing their percentages of renewables on the grid, but efficiency is key to meeting targets. The most cost effective approach is for buildings to manage and reduce energy use. A program like AEM can be used to bridge the gap.