Modern Energy Data Intelligence for Facilities Operations

A global telecommunications company with over 30,000 properties faced the challenge of effectively managing resource allocation and energy utilization in their Mobile Switching Offices (MSO), Data Centers, and mixed-use buildings. 

In addition to addressing facility challenges caused by a changing labor market, the Global Real Estate (GRE) team is tasked with achieving corporate objectives for sustainable and carbon neutral operations, while finding solutions that reduce costs in managing the built environment. With those challenges in mind, the Innovation team began exploring modern data solutions that would help them achieve their desired results.

Solution Evaluation Criteria

The GRE Innovation team is primarily responsible for identifying technology solutions to automate and improve operational performance. The key selection criteria for the energy management solution was the following:

• Rapid implementation time and time-to-value within hours and days
• Ability to scale across 1000s of buildings in the GRE portfolio
• Easy to manage and low cost of ownership
• Actionable, accurate data insights with the ability to investigate and resolve issues
• Automate discovery of electrical hierarchy with limited available data 

The incumbent systems were expensive, hardware-centric, and lacked future-proofing which made it a poor long-term solution. They were also hard to implement and not scalable, requiring time-consuming data analysis to extract insights.

The GRE Innovation team started with the Facilities Management group with the goal to identify a scalable technology solution that would enable better planning & utilization of the building equipment mechanics (BEM), who are stretched thin due to constant firefighting mode and being asked to manage an ever-expanding portfolio of assets. 

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Verdigris Selection and Implementation

After evaluating marketplace solutions, the innovation team selected the Verdigris platform that combined hardware systems (CTs and gateways) with cloud software (data analytics dashboard). The project was planned for a 12-month evaluation period starting June 2024. 

As part of the project, two chiller plants were monitored at a facility in Boston. The Verdigris energy intelligence system was implemented and configured onsite in just four hours end-to-end for each chiller unit with only one hour of training, representing 80% time savings compared to similar marketplace solutions. By the end of the day, the device data was flowing reliably and captured in the online analytics dashboard. 

Equipped with valuable electrical data, the Innovation Manager and Director of Facilities were able to understand power consumption patterns, power quality metrics, voltage & current trends and overall operational status down to the equipment level all in real-time. Close examination of their facility data also revealed specific performance anomalies that warranted investigation.

Leveraging the Verdigris smart meters and data analytics, the GRE innovation team was able to identify:

• Power fluctuations resulting from rapid chiller restarts 
• Sub-optimal PUE values for chiller plants likely caused by distorted waveforms in supply power
• High amperage events caused by pump valves that shut off too quickly 
• Unusual behavior wherein one chiller unit ramps down and the other fails to ramp up for a significant time period
• Problems related to low power factor for the chillers, which led to a review of predictive maintenance measures, and quality assessment for equipment purchases

The GRE team was then able to investigate the anomalies and take remedial measures to rectify the performance issues, avoiding unplanned equipment failures and high replacement costs for chiller assets valued at over $400M across the portfolio.

Longer term, the plan is to leverage the Verdigris platform as an early warning system for operational risk events through alerts, analytic insights and automated actions.

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