We’ve taken a bit of a departure in this issue of the Insider to provide you with a collection of real world examples showing how SkySpark analytics is providing tangible value for end users, building owners and operators, and consultants specializing in energy and facility analysis.

From identifying failed equipment to validating the results of energy saving measures and improved control strategies, SkySpark provides the analytics tools to drive increased efficiency and reduced energy and operational costs.

We want to thank our outstanding partners for sharing examples of the results they are delivering to customers with SkySpark Analytics. We hope you will gain additional insight into the value analytics can bring to your facilities.

Learn how customers and partners are delivering real business value through the application of SkySpark Analytics

The Business Value Issue

SkyFoundry Insider Issue: 4 July 6, 2011

Hidden in the data from our smart systems and devices are the keys to better building performance. The challenge is finding those keys efficiently and cost effectively.

From the data contained in monthly energy bills to the fine grained history data on temperatures, pressures, flow rates and equipment status provided by building automation systems, SkySpark uncovers hidden patterns providing operations staff with clear views of actionable issues.

It’s in the Data… We Just Need to Find It!

Validating Results

See how the operator of a nationwide retail chain validated savings from modified control sequences

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The Business Value of Analytics

Where  does  analytics  fit  in  delivering  tangible  business  value  to  your  organization?

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The Role of SkySpark in Automating the Commissioning Process

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The Business Issue – Validating The Opportunity for Energy Savings Through Changes to Control Sequences The owner/operator of a multi-site retail chain was looking to validate the potential for savings by adopting a new control sequence for Rooftop HVAC Units. The expected impact the new sequence could make needed to be tested in multiple locations and the results tracked and quantified before changes to the entire portfolio could be justified – a concept often referred to as M & V or monitoring and verification. The Solution – Automated M & V – SkySpark was used to track the runtime hours resulting from the new sequence and produced a report that calculated the savings across the portfolio based on the reduced runtime of roof top units seen in the pilot sites. The Result - $200K of savings to date, projected annual savings of $1.4 million annually across the customer’s portfolio.

The Business Issue – How frequently and how long do buildings run in emergency override?

Exceptions happen. Building systems need to be put into emergency override mode for a variety of reasons. But how long do they stay overridden and how much does it cost. The Solution – A rule was created to track the number of hours that sites were in override mode.

Identifying Opportunities for Savings and Validating Results with SkySpark

A custom report then provided managers with a clear view of the number of hours of override operation by site and across the portfolio. The impact was significant. The Result – SkySpark provided actionable information that is being used to drive reductions in energy costs projected at $1.8 million annually through changes to operational practices.

These real world examples courtesy of ESI

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The Business Issue – Energy bills do not align with fiscal periods impacting cash flow management The Solution – SkySpark rules were created to extrapolate monthly energy use to the end of month. A custom report then provided users with projected energy bills aligned with fiscal periods. The Result – The information helps the corporation carefully manage cash flow and provided operational savings of approximately 32 hours per month versus manual data collection and calculation. Oh and a much happier user!

Business Issue – Prioritizing maintenance tasks The types of problems associated with equipment failure typically make it to the top of the list quickly. But how do we prioritize all of the other maintenance issues needing attention? The Solution – Create rules and a custom report that prioritizes rule violations (Sparks) based on their cost impact.

Providing Financial Analysis to Support Better Operations Management

The Result – The information provided by SkySpark helps prioritize maintenance tasks based on the cost impact to the organization. Estimated savings/cost avoidance is expected to be in the range of $600,000 annually.

Why Analytics?

It all comes down to saving $$$

How do we find performance issues and opportunities for savings across our increasingly complex facilities and equipment systems?

Analytics designed to work with energy, building and equipment data is the key. Analytics enables you to gain additional value from the investments you have already made in your smart systems and devices. It’s like mining your data for money.

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SkySpark as a Tool for Automating the Commissioning Process Commissioning refers to the process of analyzing and reviewing the operational performance of buildings to ensure that they achieve or exceed design goals for energy efficiency, occupant comfort and equipment performance. In existing buildings commissioning identifies operational issues that inevitably occur over time. Studies by major research labs have shown that even the results achieved from energy conservation measures and equipment retrofits will revert back to previous performance levels over 18-24 months without ongoing monitoring-based commissioning. Typically, commissioning has been an extremely manual process, and while results often show paybacks of less than three years the time and costs associated with the manual commissioning process act as a deterrent for building owners to commit to the process. This chart by Lawrence Berkeley Labs has become famous (or infamous) in highlighting the issue.  

 Source:  Lawrence  Berkeley  Labs  Monitoring-­‐Based  Commissioning:  Benchmarking  

Analysis  of  24  UC/CSU/IOU  Projects,  June  2009  

 It demonstrates that ongoing commissioning based on monitoring of actual performance data enables initial savings to be sustained and results in the identification of new savings opportunities throughout the monitoring period.

In order to effectively implement continuous, monitoring-based commissioning efforts you need a tool to automate the analysis of the data coming from the building systems – SkySpark does exactly this. SkySpark takes the data from building automation systems, metering systems and other smart devices and continuously analyzes it to identify operational issues, energy performance, equipment faults, and opportunities for energy and operational savings. And, SkySpark allows analytic rules to be tailored to the needs and operational characteristics of individual buildings. Retail stores have different equipment systems and operational needs than high-rise office buildings. Hospitals have their own unique requirements and system

“With SkySpark I have the knowledge and

experience of my best engineers watching every detail of my

building operations every minute of

the day”

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dynamics. Systems that provide fixed analysis algorithms simply don’t provide the ability to “find what matters” in your facility. SkySpark takes your “static” facility data (addresses, area, geographic location, weather data, service company, etc.,) as well as the real time data generated by monitoring and control systems and processes rules against the data to find issues, patterns and opportunities for savings. Customized rules are developed building on an extensive library of analytic functions supplied with SkySpark. The result – you never have to start from scratch and you never have to settle for default rules that don’t fit the operational characteristics of your facilities.  

 Build on SkySpark’s extensive library of analytic functions to implement analytic rules that fit the needs of your facilities

Real Results

The result, as we have seen in the our examples from real customer implementations are the ability to truly see how your buildings are operating and identify operational issues and opportunities for savings, from the portfolio level to fault detection on individual pieces of equipment.

SkyFoundry’s software solutions help clients derive value from their investments in smart systems. The SkySpark analytics platform automatically analyzes data from building automation systems, metering systems and other smart devices to identify issues, patterns, deviations, faults and opportunities for operational improvements and cost reduction – even tracking, analyzing and reporting on the costs associated with issues it detects!

SkySpark helps building owners and operators “find what matters” in the vast amount of data produced by today’s smart systems. SkyFoundry technology is an ideal fit for owners and operators of large facility portfolios yet provides cost effective results even on single mid-sized building installations.

Business Intelligence software for your physical assets

How  do  we  let  busy  managers  and  operational  personnel  know  that  something  is  worthy  of  their  attention?  Is  it  possible  to  make  sense  of  operational  data  with  minimal,  or  no,  human  intervention?  Can  we  impart  our  knowledge  of  equipment  systems  to  software  to  enable  it  to  find  issues,  patterns,  and  faults?  SkySpark  provides  the  solution.    SkySpark  allows  domain  experts  to  capture  their  knowledge  in  “rules”  that  automatically  run  against  the  data  produced  by  smart  systems.  Employing  “semantic  tagging”,  pattern  recognition,  functional  rules  processing  and  other  techniques,  SkySpark’s  analytics  engine  provides  the  ability  to  automatically  identify  issues  worthy  of  attention.  The  result  –the  capability  to  show  users  what  they  need  to  know  about  the  performance  of  their  systems.    

SkySpark – Analytics for a World of Smart Devices

The  new  frontier  is  to  efficiently  manage  and  analyze  data  to  find  what  matters.

SkyFoundry Insider is a Publication of SkyFoundry http://www.skyfoundry.com “Find What Matters”™

Project Haystack – Delivering Value for the Entire Community Join the process! One of the challenges in managing and analyzing data from equipment systems and smart devices is to be able to interpret its meaning. Today most operational data has poor semantic modeling and requires a manual, labor-intensive process to "map" the data before analytics can begin. Standard naming conventions and taxonomies can dramatically reduce the costs of preparing data for analysis. Project Haystack is an open source initiative to develop naming conventions and taxonomies for building equipment and operational data. The project defines standardized models for sites, equipment, and points related to energy, HVAC, lighting, and other systems. Take a look and join us today. http://project-haystack.org/ Response to the project has been overwhelmingly positive. In just the last 8 weeks the community has developed draft proposals for Boiler Plants, Data Centers and extensions to the existing models for AHU’s. Please consider joining the effort – its open to everyone.