EnergyCAP Blog

A large number of facilities with widely varied uses—administration, classroom, laboratories, athletics, parking, medical, etc.—a diverse group of occupants, long operating hours, multiple funding sources, and consistent growth combine to make energy management at a large public university a complex undertaking. Lalit Agarwal, Director of Facilities Systems at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), recently presented a webinar titled “The Ins and Outs of Campus Energy Data” to explain how UNL has integrated numerous systems—including EnergyCAP—and internal teams to establish a program that is successfully reducing energy consumption across campus, while maintaining occupant comfort.

On December 12, 2015, representatives of 196 parties within the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiated the Paris Climate Agreement. [i]  Article 2 of the UNFCC agreement outlined its objectives:

“Productivity Unleashed” was the theme of last month’s Catalyst Training for Savings Conference, and EnergyCAP, Inc. CEO Steve Heinz closed the conference with a keynote titled “10 Tips to Unleash Your Productivity.”  We shared tips 6–10 in our April 19th blog, and now the suspense is over. The top five tips are presented below.

EnergyCAP is widely recognized as a powerful utility bill and energy management tool for facility operations. Did you know that some EnergyCAP customers are also leveraging the application’s features to better track and manage their vehicle fleets in response to emerging sustainability and compliance mandates?  

That’s a wrap!  The 2017 edition of EnergyCAP’s Catalyst Training for Savings Conference came to a successful conclusion Thursday, April 13. And 100 EnergyCAP users–representing a wide range of organization types and sizes–departed State College, PA with an expanded arsenal of utility bill and energy management skills.

The term “Software as a Service” and its more commonly used acronym, SaaS, were originally coined in 2001 in an article published by the Software & Information Industry Association’s eBusiness Division.[i]  SaaS is simply defined as software rental, with the licensee typically paying a monthly or annual fee for the right to use a vendor-hosted application.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) introduced the ENERGY STAR program in 1992 and described it as “a voluntary labeling program designed to identify and promote energy-efficient products to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”[i] Over the past 25 years, the ENERGY STAR label – recognized by more than 90% of Americans – has progressed from computers and monitors to most major appliances and office equipment, lighting, homes, and commercial and industrial facilities. And, according to the EPA, the ENERGY STAR program has resulted in utility bill savings of $362 billion and reduced GHG emissions by 2.4 billion metric tons.[ii]

In October of 2016, the New York City Council approved changes to a 2009 energy benchmarking ordinance (Local Law 84) that added new benchmarking requirements for thousands of private and city-owned buildings. The goal was to extend the reach of NYC's energy benchmarking and audit program. The changes came on the heels of a report published by Crain's New York Business last August that documented carbon emission reductions of 8 percent and decreases in energy use of 6 percent for 3,000 NYC “consistently benchmarked properties.” This preliminary data was perhaps the first confirmation that the City's benchmarking program was making a real difference. The impact of the changes will be difficult to assess for some time, due to reporting timetables built into the law, but New York City is clearly doubling down on mandated energy benchmarking. Today’s blog highlights the recent changes, and the observed results to date.

 [Today’s blog is written by Matthew Heinz, EnergyCAP’s Vice President of Customer Service. His topic is our Customer Success program.] It’s challenging and intimidating to implement a new enterprise-level software application, especially one as full-featured as EnergyCAP. But failure is NOT inevitable! At EnergyCAP, we want you to be successful in understanding our software's functionality and with using it to meet your energy efficiency goals. We have an exciting service offering specifically aimed at this, and it’s called Customer Success. Before I tell you what Customer Success is, let me tell you what it is not.

City of Palm Springs, Riverside County, CA Success is commonly defined as “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.” When setting about to purchase an energy management information system (EMIS), the publicly stated purpose is commonly to reduce energy consumption. It’s a realistic, positive aim and an objective that typically garners internal and external support. That said, what ultimately “sells” the EMIS project is cost savings. Fortunately, cost savings go hand-in-hand with lower energy consumption. But that’s only part of the story. A capable EMIS that is properly implemented provides benefits far beyond consistently lower utility bills, such as labor savings, streamlined processes, enhanced data sharing/integration, and technology-driven productivity gains. The County of Riverside, CA, is a great example.

In a perfect world, all of your utility meters would trip their odometer readings at 12:00 a.m. on the first day of every calendar month, all your utility bills would reflect the energy you used for precisely that period, and all planes and trains would run on time. Your relationship with your energy data would be perfect, and you wouldn’t need dating rules! In the real world, things are a bit messier. But how we handle that mess determines the accuracy and reliability of our energy metrics. Today’s blog explains a few EnergyCAP best practices for handling the available energy data to assure the most reliable outcome. Regardless of your energy management system or analytics practices, this topic should be relevant!

“A new year, a new me.” It’s a phrase I’ve heard numerous times over the past three weeks, and I witness vigorous attempts to live up to the cliché every January when I walk into my local fitness facility. Of course, by February, the traffic has gotten back to “normal.” But unlike most of those “resolutioners” at my gym, EnergyCAP’s corporate commitment to a 2017 makeover is a promise you can take to the bank. In today’s blog, I’d like to share some events that will become exciting reality in the next 12 months. But first, you can “rest” assured that product leadership and customer intimacy remain EnergyCAP hallmarks, and we’re not going to change that in 2017. We’re going to stick with what we do best: Continuing product innovation Expanding and enhancing our service offerings Adding and training customer-focused personnel Delivering a value-packed annual training conference Specifically, here is what you can look forward to in 2017.

[Editor’s Note: Chris Heinz, EnergyCAP’s Vice President for Human Resources, is this week’s blogger. He brings valuable insights into the black box of corporate hiring procedures, and suggests a current methodology for maximizing value in the hiring process. Please read and consider sharing internally in your organization!] Here at EnergyCAP, Inc., we’re always looking for ways to improve so that our customers receive the best services, products, and experiences possible. One of these innovations is the hiring process. We’ve introduced behavioral interviewing into employee selection, which so far, has yielded nine excellent new hires in the last four months. If you come to Catalyst this spring, you can meet them.

As we gear up for a productive New Year, we are taking this blog opportunity to highlight several resources of value to the community of readers we serve. New Case Study Toward the end of 2016, we completed a case study in collaboration with James City County, VA. Entitled One Ring to Rule Them All, the study shares the advantages of energy management software for a county government. It’s a fun read that will get you thinking about savings opportunities in your organization.

The dust has settled after the November elections, and the results are unchanged despite a flurry of protests. Now that we are in the final days of Obama’s presidency, one thing is certain on the energy management front: change is in the wind. Today’s blog takes a look at President-Elect Donald Trump’s ambitious energy plan, and speculates a bit on what it might mean for our industry in the months and years ahead.

Webster’s dictionary defines stewardship as, “the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.” As an adoptive parent, I can understand stewardship. Bringing a child who once belonged to different parents into your home is an act of stewardship. In fact, before the adoption is finalized and before you become the legal parent of the child, you’re called the child’s “steward.” You’ve been entrusted to care for a person which is not yet your own.

The quest began in 2009 with the best of intentions: Provide home and small business owners with a free, easy-to-use online application to track and manage their energy use. Making money on the application was not a priority. Instead, it was largely a philanthropic pursuit intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save its users some money. It was a noble quest. But alas, what had begun with great fanfare in 2009 was over less than two years later.

EnergyCAP project managers will be travelling coast to coast to implement new clients on the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards this winter and spring. The State of Connecticut has purchased EnergyCAP utility bill management software for statewide energy management and utility bill tracking, and the City of Los Angeles has also acquired EnergyCAP through a General Services Administration (GSA) process for comprehensive tracking and reporting of the city’s electric, natural gas and water utilities.

In 1634, England’s King Charles I signed legislation that created James City Shire within the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, that prosperous shire, now known as James City County, is home to approximately 70,000 residents and is an EnergyCAP success story.

Today's blog highlights a new EnergyCAP webinar series.

It's November 11 as I write this blog. Veterans' Day sort of snuck up on me this year. I'm not sure why—perhaps I have gotten so used to celebrating every national holiday on the artificial Monday. As I was reflecting on the significance of the day, and the freedoms protected by generations of U.S. servicemen and women, it seemed particularly appropriate to offer a Veteran's Day tribute to an air force veteran who we know well at EnergyCAP, as well as the energy management industry that sparked within him a unique but passionate patriotism.

“How are you currently processing your utility bills?” Here at EnergyCAP, we’ve been asking that question of our prospects for decades. Surprisingly, the answers are often more about what people are NOT doing, rather than what they ARE doing: The most common answers are: “Each department receives its bills, gives them a visual check, and then forwards them to Accounting for payment.” “Accounting receives the bills and pays them, and then they send us a spreadsheet to review.” Both responses ("check first" or "check later") are commonly followed by, “We know we should check our utility bills more closely, but we don’t have a system in place to do that.” These folks have already figured out that they should be auditing their utility bills. They just want to do it better. And that, of course, is where EnergyCAP comes in. EnergyCAP enables you to audit effectively.

When I saw the green energy monitoring panel on the wall of my hotel room, I couldn’t believe my eyes. An energy monitoring panel here? I’d never seen anything like this! The building’s designers must have had some sustainability goal in mind, but drawing on my forty years of experience producing energy tracking software, all I could think was this is so…wrong!

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) provides centralized procurement for the federal government, offering billions of dollars’ worth of products, services, and facilities that federal agencies need to serve the public.  The mission of GSA is to deliver the best value in real estate, acquisition, and technology services to government and the American people. In today’s blog, we will look at GSA options and advantages for utility bill/energy management software procurement for a range of public institutions, including federal, state, municipal, and higher education.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus reportedly said that the only thing that is constant is change. He probably wasn’t talking about your real estate portfolio, but if you manage energy for multiple properties, you know that Heraclitus’ declaration has a ring of truth. Buildings and organizations change over time. Processes are revamped. Employees retire or transfer. Remodeling happens. Space is repurposed from one function to another. And systems struggle (often unsuccessfully) to keep up with the pace. Your energy management software is another system, and you may have been using it in the same way for years. But is your current approach the best approach? Have inevitable changes created an opportunity to do things differently and to do them better? Today’s blog on software retro commissioning may help you answer that question.

It’s the “CAP” in EnergyCAP—"Cost Avoidance Program"—and it’s helping more than 800 organizations across North America to measure and verify the impact of their energy conservation measures. But what happens when extreme weather threatens to hinder accurate calculations?

Over my nearly two decades in the energy management software industry, I have spoken with many energy and facilities managers, and a common topic of conversation is the value of monthly utility bill data versus meter interval data for analysis. In most cases, my response is, “Do both.” Start with an analysis of billing data and refine your research and management with interval data.

This blog is the second installment in a short series drawn from our September Energy Leader Webinar: Tips for Getting Buy-In for Your Energy Project. The webinar purpose was simple: to help participants get more projects approved and more energy saved. Webinar speakers were Steve Heinz, founder and CEO of EnergyCAP, Inc., and Dr. Eric Woodroof, founder and principal of Profitable Green Solutions. Today we’ll share some of the insights we gleaned from Steve’s portion of the presentation.

This blog is the first installment in a short series drawn from last week’s Energy Leader Webinar: Tips for Getting Buy-In for Your Energy Project. The webinar purpose was simple: to help participants get more projects approved and more energy saved. If you’re looking for tips on how to get your next energy project approved, read on!