As it’s now Year 5 since LEDs took over LightFair, we were already anticipating an overwhelming number of new LED products.  Showing that “anyone with a brand name” needs to enter the LED game, this year’s winner was Whirlpool, a company extending their energy management apps for appliances into lighting?

But beyond sheer volume, three subthemes emerged:

1.  Warmer colors:  Better LED price performance now gives vendors the chance to show off products that come in warmer color temperatures (2700K and 3000K.)

In the past manufacturers prioritized achieving high lumen output over producing warmer colors (which also takes chip performance.)   First and second generation LED lamps and fixtures were often cold, operating at 5000 to 6500K.

Today they can do both.   Booth marketing teams this year talked about CRI, color blending and warmer colors instead of bragging about how long LEDs last.

One vendor took us into a dark booth to show off two side by side LED retail displays, both with high CRI and warm color.  Evidently 97% of the retail merchandizers surveyed at a prior conference had picked one over the other.  Our team had a blank stare – with our energy-efficiency eye both looked equally great.

2.  Smarts are in (literally):  Lighting control for digital LEDs is happening and it’s even moving from add-on systems to embedded.

Vendors are showing off their integration with third party controls and more booths have LCDs showing fancy software screens with lighting control graphics. Maybe CA’s Title 24, which requires lighting controls, and is set to go live January 1, 2014 is helping?

Up and coming players all had their announcements - Enlighted announcing another fund raise of $20 million and Digital Lumens demonstrated their integration to other LED fixtures.

Where last year Lutron announced their plan to embed their controls widget into CREE fixtures, this year the move is to add capabilities directly into LED drivers and ballasts.  Marvel’s partnership with Daintree moves this direction.  And its even happening with smart, connected street lighting like Echelon’s deal to be embed their technology directly into Osram ballasts.

While the embedded wave generally doesn’t add new control capabilities, it does attack lowering the cost – which is the real sign of a maturing market.

3.  Lamps and fixtures look the same, now they just have LEDs inside.   A few years ago manufacturers were struggling with how to replace round and tubular HID and fluorescent lamps with flat LED chips inside “traditional” lamp housings .  This year we saw a noticeable number of lamps and fixtures where you didn’t know LEDs were inside.

Part of this comes as a result of LED performance increases, which now allow manufacturers to add glare reducing diffusors to cover the point source chips.  Where lots of bright dots used to give away the fact that it was an LED fixture, now lighting distribution is more even.  In an effort to get more configurability out of one lamp or fixture, manufacturers like Soraa and Amerlux showed a set of clip-on lenses which can be used to shape light as needed even after installation.

This move to “look like what you know” was strongest at the CREE booth.   Earlier they had already introduced a new LED A lamp, which looks virtually identical to a traditional incandescent bulb in your home.  This year they showed off a T8 retrofit look alike, which replaces the linear fluorescent lamps in a traditional 2×2 or 2×4 office troffer fixture.  The color was great, the shape was identical and you could keep your existing fixture in place.  Looking up you could not tell the difference – looking down at your utility bill you likely will…

Then we read the fine print.  The study, funded by the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, was neither peer reviewed nor academically published.  Uh boy.

So let’s take a step back and consider the following timeframes:

NYC’s and San Francisco’s energy benchmarking programs only went live requiring reporting a year ago.  Seattle, Philadelphia, Austin started since then and Washington DC and Minneapolis just launched in the last few months.  (Which means Boston’s Green Ribbon Commission is actually late to the party in pushing to get this new policy passed.)

To convince a building owner to implement an energy efficiency upgrade takes our team an average of twelve months.  Then we install the project a few months later.  Then the savings need to materialize and be measured.  A utility study which independently measured results could probably be delivered a year after that – then it could given to Professor Stavin’s team so they could draw their own conclusions.

Get the picture?  It takes at least a few years for this sort of adoption to be fully measurable.

The report also asserts that similar programs in Europe have no academic studies validating such a policy’s impact.

But while many countries are implementing their own programs, like the US, most of these have also developed in the last few years.  It may have been better to analyze the adoption in Australia, whose benchmarking ordinances were initially introduced in 1998, likely making it the world’s longest standing program?   And back here in the US there are studies which counter his “too early to tell” opinion – check out the Georgia Tech study, the California PUC study or the Facilities Manager review.

Pushing it further, Larry Harman’s Boston Globe editorial suggested that the new policy would “aggravate” Boston’s real estate owners.  He opined that the policy of forcing expensive energy audits for buildings that are generally older than the rest of the country, with fines for non-compliance, would just be unfair.

Oh please.

Yes, Boston’s built environment may be old, but in real estate reducing a building’s operating costs adds directly to the property’s income, which increases the value of that property.  Massachusetts has some of the highest energy rates in the country and ranks number three (behind CA and NY) in providing tax-payer funded energy efficiency incentives.  In our experience in doing work across the country the financial return for upgrading older buildings in Boston is probably one of the best in the US.

You can’t catalyze energy efficiency change if you don’t first measure and report energy consumption.  Building energy benchmarking is only a first step, but it can change consumer psychology through new awareness, which in turn can drive behavior change and investment in energy efficiency.  You either want to drive it or you don’t – which is the question Boston legislators can vote on next…

Economist’s normally search for the social drivers.  Stavin’s colleagues down the hall in HBS’s Marketing department must have already analyzed the now famous Oberlin college dorm research study where dorm residents, given their own energy usage information, competed to reduce their consumption.  And the consumer research which confirms the reduction impact when consumers are told how much energy they consume relative to their neighbors. Putting a ranking on a commercial building is the same bet.  Australia’s NABERS system uses a one to five gold star rating and Energy Star uses scores from 1 to 100 – but either way, it gets the simple point across – you’re doing well or you’re not.

But Stavin comes at it from an economist’s viewpoint, not a consumer behavior angle – so let’s stick to the business and the financial implications.

So let’s consider a 250,000 square foot office building in Boston.

At an average value of $250 per foot, the building would be worth @ $62.5 million.  Its annual real estate taxes might be $2 million, common area maintenance costs $2.5 million and utilities $1 million.  Let’s assume the owners have @ 50% leverage and expect to make 15% on their equity or $4.7 million in earnings per year.

Running an Energy Star Portfolio Manager model on this building might cost $2k.  A full blown energy assessment (likely subsidized for 50% of its cost by the utility) might be another $5 – $10k.  (btw – energy audit costs are only going down, as we now see a number of new startups focused on providing high volume, low-cost energy audit tools.)

So over a five year period, if the owner runs an Energy Star model every year and performs one energy assessment, the added cost for Boston’s energy benchmarking ordinance would be approximately $15 – 20k.

A typical energy assessment for this sized building might identify HVAC and lighting upgrades which save 15% of the building’s utility costs ($150k).  The investment would be $450k, but the utility would support a third of the project’s cost, producing a two-year payback on the owner’s net $300k investment.  The study would likely  identify no-cost behavior changes that save another 3% of the building’s energy costs ($30k).

Post the energy efficiency upgrade and behavior change savings the building now earns $4.9 million and is worth $2.4 million more using a Boston Class A cap rate of 7.5%.  (Income taxes would also reduced using Federal EPAct accelerated depreciation, but that’s icing on the cake.)

So let’s recap:

Boston implements a new real estate policy and this owner is forced to spend @ $20k over five years to comply.

If the owner decides to invest nothing, the energy assessment alone will likely show a way to save $30k per year.

If the owner decides to invest in upgrades, the $320k investment over five years will add $180k in operating income each year, and increases the property’s value by over $ 2 million whenever they sell the building.

When you consider typical government compliance policies, does this one really seem that unfair?

Corporate energy management programs are increasing.   Despite flat energy prices, companies continue to see opportunities that energy efficiency affords for margin expansion while meeting manufacturing production or occupancy comfort goals. Improved energy efficiency is also needed to meet publicly stated carbon or energy reduction goals and to demonstrate top customers the commitment to operational efficiency. 3M, Alcoa, Applied Materials, AT&T, Best Buy, Briggs and Stratton, Cinemark, Eastman Chemical Company, General Electric, Genzyme, Niemen Marcus, Millipore, Pfizer, Staples and hundreds of others have established corporate energy management programs lead by a Corporate Energy Manager.

These companies are realizing 5-20% energy savings through coordinated capital allocation for retrofits, no or low cost operational changes, utility incentives, shared best practices, and shared corporate services.

While some specific job responsibility differs, for the most part these positions are responsible for shepherding increased energy efficiency company-wide, across all sites and plants and ensuring alignment between company goals and local execution.

Most corporate energy management program are in their infancy as companies establish an understanding of their total energy spend across facilities, identify top energy consuming assets, leverage any energy procurement and demand response opportunities, develop software tools for monitoring energy costs and ensure energy accountability with senior management, line managers, and facility managers.

An energy management program and role require new skills. Organizations are traditionally staffed to optimize manufacturing production (“don’t slow down the line”) or occupancy comfort (“keep the hotel guest, office works or students happy”).   Facility management and operations teams are skilled at ensuring operational reliability.  But they often may not have the time, skills or corporate mandate to focus on energy management across all corporate operations. New skills are also needed to act upon the flood of new data from the increased use of energy management software that pulls together energy cost and use data from utility bills and submeters.

Ten years ago very few companies had a Corporate Energy Manager. Today perhaps twenty percent do, and in five years we expect the vast majority of large companies will have staffed this position as the profit enhancement from energy efficiency is simply too great ignore and the return on investment for the program is often less than one year.

For those just starting a program, the Energy Star has a decent framework.

What do you think about this new role?  If you are involved with energy management, consider taking our Corporate Energy Manager survey (info below).

Take the GreenBiz/Groom Energy Corporate Energy Management Survey

We have partnered with GreenBiz on a survey to better understand the role of the Corporate Energy Manager.  If you involved with energy management, please take this 10 minute survey. In return, we’ll send you summarized results so you can benchmark your program (no individual company information will be shared).   Take the survey here.

Step 1.  Shut off the compressor.  Step 2. Turn off the lights.   Step 3.  Close the door.

But the best visuals come from situations where we find a heating system and a cooling system operating at the same time.

Some are short duration – like a surgeon needing the operating room to be kept at very low temperatures to slow the patient’s blood flow during the procedure, while the surrounding rooms require heating.  Some are longer duration - like the college dorm with old steam radiators cranking too much heat, spurring students to leave the windows open all winter long.

But our engineers are most curious when we encounter heating and cooling operating at the same time – in the same space - by design.  Sounds wacky, but consider these:

1.  Big Box Retail Stores

Big box retail stores typically have packaged rooftop units (RTUs) providing space conditioning.  Most RTUs are configured to cycle fresh air into the store at a certain rate, based on the estimated number of shoppers.  So while the RTU is working to cool and dehumidify on a summer day, it’s simultaneously drawing in hot, humid “fresh” outside air, removing “stale” air that it just finished cooling.  The more outside air the RTU brings in, the harder it needs to work to cool and dehumidify the space.  (Just reverse this for the winter season example.)

Options here?  We add demand control ventilation (DCV) which measures the amount of CO2 in the store and brings in fresh air only when needed, as opposed to hard-wiring 6 to 10 fresh air changes per day.  We can also add energy-recovery ventilators, which use the cold or heat from air being removed to pre-cool or pre-heat the incoming outside air, thereby reducing the RTU’s work load.

2.  Cold Storage Warehouses

Ammonia chillers keep these buildings at below freezing temperatures all year round, preserving stored frozen product.  Yet the building’s concrete slab floor also contains its own heating system.  Without it the subsoil below the slab would freeze, swell and buckle the floor.  The heating system might be hot liquid or electric within the slab, or forced hot air blown under the building’s foundation.  Either way, the chillers fight a heated floor 24 x 7 x 365.

Options here?   Some warehouses have already optimized by using recaptured waste heat from the chillers for the floor heating.  As a large thermal mass, slab floors take a long time to change temperature, so we consider running the heated floor only when necessary, based on the temperature differential at that time.  If the floor is heated electrically we can time-shift the system to nighttime operation, when kWh can be less expensive – or turn the system off briefly at peak periods in order to reduce utility demand charges.

3.  Grocery Stores

Next time you reach into a cooler cabinet to grab a Ben & Jerry’s, take a look at the glass door.  It’s heated.  To combat condensation buildup, case manufacturers have designed in an electric door heating system which operates in tandem with the cooling system.  Interestingly the heater draws nearly four times more electricity than the cooling.

Options here?   We add moisture sensors (called anti-sweat controllers) just within the door frame connected to the glass.  The controllers then cycle heat to the doors only when moisture is detected by the sensor.

Unlike “close the door” and “turn off the lights” most of these solutions require a retrofit and cost money.   While the investments are typically fast payback, they only reduce consumption a modest amount.  But remember we started with two systems designed to fight each other – which is never a good thing in energy efficiency.

Limited access to low-cost capital is the market impediment.

Or is it?

Do buyers really believe what they’re buying will work, such that low-cost financing is all it takes for them to start buying more energy-efficiency?

The $5 billion ESCO market, which utilizes low-cost tax-exempt bonds to finance energy-efficiency investments, has been growing at 15-20% per year.  Not the highest in its 40-year history, but not too bad in today’s market.  In these financings the ESCO customer tells potential bondholders that the energy saving investment will provide future cash flow, that in turn can be used to pay back their bonds.  The bond market makes the credit decision.  The ESCO provides its “guarantee” for the energy savings and installs the project, getting paid with the proceeds from the bond offering.

Interestingly, the number of times an ESCO has made a payout on their guarantee is stunningly low.  The reason is that ESCOs only insure what they control, i.e. their energy calculations.  And before any project is started the customer must sign off on the building operating assumptions that drive the energy savings calculations.  So in most cases an ESCO really just guarantees that its math is correct – like fancy wrapping paper around an empty box.

But this ESCO guarantee is still required to make the public financing work.

Beyond the institutional market, is low-cost capital alone enough to catalyze the commercial and industrial market?

Consider this.  Today most major corporations are already flush with cash on their balance sheets.  And for those that aren’t, the last time I checked the cost to borrow money was pretty close to an all-time low.  So you have to ask the question, do corporations really need lower cost financing?

Of course some do.  But this could be negative self-selection, with only companies in poor financial health taking the offer.  In which case lenders might be nervous – and require some sort of guarantee to backstop their low-cost capital lending to a high-risk company.

Typically Groom Energy’s customers pay us outright to perform our installation upgrades.  The capital comes from their annual capital budget or their on-going maintenance or production budgets.  While we’re often asked to propose both a purchase and a financed option, not surprisingly companies rarely choose the latter for fast payback projects.

We’ve deliver financing three different ways:

1.  Shared Savings:  With long-standing customers we’ve used our own shared-savings financing whereby we install, own and maintain assets and get paid over time as the energy savings materialize.  With this approach (called our CESA) we’re responsible for everything – designing, installing, maintaining the system, the utility incentive and the credit risk.   The meter is the guarantee and tells our customer how much they owe us.  But CESA isn’t for everyone – it requires a performance contract-like agreement and a sophisticated customer who must provide us legal lease access to their facility.

2.  Capital Leasing:   Occasionally we also bring in an outside capital leasing partner who makes their own credit decision on a general purpose loan to our customer.  During the credit review process our project development team is left hoping this wasn’t negative self selection  In taking on the loan our customer relies on our energy model to assure them that the project will be cash-flow positive (or at least cash-flow neutral.)  If we’ve managed our project development process appropriately (using metering, a demonstration implementation, and involved their local utility) they’re typically confident that our model is close to reality.  They trust us.

3.  Utility On-Bill Finance:  Where it has been available we’ve brought in the customer’s local utility to offer a project incentive and an on-bill finance option.  We just announced this recent project with National Grid utilizing this model.   It’s powerful because the customer already has a relationship with their utility, the utility reviews our energy model before supporting it and the customer trusts that we’re not geared toward gaming them.  We’re all in it together.

This has been the most efficient of all three options and the reason we’re excited about the emerging on-bill repayment program in CA, which will expand the number & size of project financing available.

Beyond the financing question, occasionally we hear the question “will you guarantee it?”

This always leaves our project development team wondering if our initial two-year payback estimate looks too good?  Or maybe the customer has previously been burned by another vendor?

Either way they don’t yet trust us.

With any energy-efficiency model we can always change our assumptions to make it look better or worse.  The art of it is to make sure our customer participates with our engineers in building assumptions, be it for a single system like compressed air, RTUs or lighting or interdependent system like air handlers with VFDs attached to a manufacturing process.  Everything we model must be done collaboratively – with our customer’s input and guidance.

Some customers take a hand’s off approach, listening to our savings estimates but instead requiring that we fully meter everything, engage with a heavily negotiated contract that puts the screws to Groom Energy if we’ve over estimated the savings, or even defers payment if savings have yet to materialize.

Sounds like a fun and trusting relationship, right?

Fortunately, most of our customers realize that if Groom Energy doesn’t deliver the savings, the biggest pain with be ours, as that customer will won’t work with us in the future.  They know based on our customer resumé that we’re absolutely goal aligned to over perform.

But in the end, if they’re still asking “can you guarantee it” we have failed at establishing trust.

In which case they’re unlikely to adopt – with us, or any other provider.

Trust and low-cost capital together are the most powerful combination for accelerating energy-efficiency adoption.

Was it a conspiracy by CBS to sell more advertising?  One brand team used the dark time to quickly execute an Oreo cookie twitter campaign which said “Power Outage?  You Can Still Dunk In The Dark.  And there were some entertaining tweets from the masses about the a Superbowl with no power.  Or maybe the 34 minutes was paid for by Caterpillar, hoping to drive awareness for their backup generators?   It could certainly help the calculation of the monetary value for reliable backup generation.

But NRG says that there was a full backup system was in place and, after a portion of the electrical network overloaded, it operated as designed and power was restored.  CBS also claimed full backup, and although they didn’t stop broadcasting, the booth with Phil Simms and Jim Nantz was off the air for 30 minutes.

So while engineers begin studying how the backup system could have restored power faster, eventually they’ll come to the stadium’s lighting.

You probably know stadium lighting from afar.   It could be from when you were last a spectator at a major sporting event and looked up at the lighting towers, each holding 10 to 100 individual round domed shaped fixtures.  Or if you’ve been on a quiet and lit neighborhood playing field you might remember that annoying background buzzing sound.   Or that the lights need a warm up period before practice can begin.  Whether its the Superbowl or your town field we’ve all been exposed to this high intensity discharge (HID) based lighting

Each HID fixture draws 1 to 1.5 kilowatts of energy.  As a comparison, to provide reliable electricity service to your home, a local utility will likely model 1.5 – 2 kw of demand.  And here’s a shocker – HIDs are not energy efficient.  The light output from an HID lamp depreciates quickly, with each fixture giving out less light for the same power consumed.  Once the default lighting type for other high-mounting height locations like warehouses, factories and gymnasiums, HIDs have broadly been replaced by more energy efficient fluorescent lighting, and, more recently, long lasting LEDs.

But the Superbowl feature that stands out most is instant on – instant off.

What many didn’t pick up last night is the fact that even with power restored HID systems take 10-15 minutes just to come to full light output – or roughly half of last night’s Superbowl downtime.  Not exactly what we’ve all come to expect from a light switch at home or at the office.  In energy efficiency land, not being able to turn something on and off when needed is a killer.   The world is moving toward demand based everything – controls should automatically know when you need something and when you don’t – and turn things on and off accordingly..

So the Superbowl power outage may actually have been a commercial in disguise – and anyone selling HID lighting was NOT using twitter to tell the world how much they enjoyed it.

In the case of wind, Congress even enhanced the incentive, making the industry’s requested language change, so a wind system need only be “in construction” phase, not “fully commissioned” by end of 2013.  Since large wind turbine projects take 18-24 months to plan, this will provide some relief, but likely only for project developers who were ready to pull the trigger ordering turbines by Q3 of this year.

In the case of solar, Congress punted the ball down the field for two months on 1603 (cash instead of tax credit) and gave a full year extension for the bonus depreciation (MACRS) tax incentive.

It’s funny to think how just a month ago, with the cliff looming, those of us in the midst of constructing projects were scrambling.

Here in New England, Varian Semiconductor had completed it’s own $8 million turbine in Gloucester, commissioning its system in early December.  But down the road a private developer for an $11 million two turbine project was racing to get the systems commissioned by year-end.  In the end their installation was hampered by the interconnection process with National Grid.  Millions of dollars were on the line as the ball dropped on Times Square.  You can bet the fiscal cliff drama had a different meaning for that management team.

At Groom Energy our team was on a rooftop getting our final utility signoff for a solar system on New Year’s Eve, not knowing if the solar incentives would be extended.

Unfortunately we’ve now become trained to expect that government and utility incentive programs will start and stop with no warning.

Just this week Arizona, the sunniest state in the country, suddenly killed it’s developing solar industry.  With one quick decision they slashed all the incentives that had existing for some time.  Businesses had for years been hiring based on the availability of this program, so the effect of a complete cut will be severe to say the least.

As the soon-to-be unemployed Arizona solar workers start the trek to California in search of new jobs, there is a much bigger lesson for any politician defining an industry focused support program.

Incentive programs need time to ramp up AND ramp down.

While there will be contentious debate anytime a government funded incentive is considered – once the decision is made, policy makers must design them for the long term.  This means they should recognize that companies don’t hire in a day, and customers don’t make purchasing decisions the next.  Programs take time to change behavior.

But when a program ends abruptly the reverse is true – customers do stop buying immediately – and businesses shut down faster than you can say shovel-ready stimulus.

So instead of basing a program’s end on the whims of future policy makers, the original authors should define price ratchets which step down over time.  The ratchets should be based on real economic metrics – i.e. the number of MWs installed, the payback of a base system or the market price of a commodity.  With this signaling businesses and customers can make rational decisions during the life of the program.  And policy makers can show constituents that the funding will not be required in perpetuity.

Perhaps most importantly – employees can feel better that the day after the next election a newly elected politician won’t decide whether or not they have a job.

1. BMS vendors begin to open up their closed, proprietary building control systems.

Led by Johnson Controls, BMS control manufacturers begin to add API and other ways to allow customers to open their BMS data and controls to non-BMS vendors.  Control manufacturers are slowly catching up to the realities of an open, multiple vendor approach to monitoring and controlling energy and assets.    Industry-accepted communications standards, low cost communications and innovative sensors and meters are driving a move from “dumb” facilities and operations with no visibility to “smart” facilities and operations that are networked and digitally communicate usage trends and remotely control assets.

2. High profile, venture-backed startups switch CEOs and business models in search of a winning approach

A number of the high profile venture-backed startups went through CEO changes, layoffs, and strategy changes as they adjust their expense levels and approaches to actual customer needs and market demand.

After raising $45M, Hara is on its third CEO in 18 months and is offering free trials and free versions of its software (similar to Noesis Energy which raised $14M).

C3, which raised $89M, downsized and switched its messaging and focus from large commercial customers to utilities with its acquisition of Efficiency 2.0.

Initially backed with $17M, SCIenergy merged with Transcend, the energy financing startup with the Transcend CEO now running the newly combined entity.

SeriousEnergy, which raised $130M and tried to combine varied businesses including manufacturing high performance windows, energy management software and energy financing, downsized and experienced significant management turn over (some of it detailed in this GTM article).

3. Acquisitions by large companies hit the market

Schneider Electric’s acquisition of Summit Energy seems to be going well as we receive numerous inquires about it from companies.  Schneider Electric now offers a very broad energy management set of offerings from meters, to controls, to utility bill management and to procurement.  The Siemens’ acquisition of Pace Global is also watched by many.

  Look for other large firms like Honeywell and Johnson Controls to make acquisitions in 2013.

4. Innovative firms continue to raise money

Innovative and often very focused startups raised money in 2012. Some notable ones are:

• First Fuel, energy data analytics, raised $10m in Series A
• Outsmart, energy monitors, raised $1.5M in Series B
• Powerit Solutions, energy controls, raised $8.5m in Series B and C
• Stem (formerly Powergetics), energy storage, raised $10M in series A
• Urjanet, utility bill aggregation, raised $4m in Series B

The need for organizations to lower costs and to improved operations continues to drive purchases of energy management solutions. Purchasers need to be aware of the changing vendor landscape to ensure the most intelligent and least risky purchase decision.

Responses

We received responses from many of you — thank you. Here is a sampling.

Paul Hepperla, VP of Strategy at Verisae, shared some quantitative data that reinforces the challenges. He noted that the Institute for Building Efficiency surveys found that about 50% respondents only rely on utility bills for their energy data and at least another 10% don’t look at any energy data (utility or meter). Small team size are confirmed in IFMA surveys that show 2.3 FTE’s on energy teams for large entities (more than $30M in energy spend and 5M square feet).

Paul and others noted that identifying true energy use anomalies from these large data sets requires human domain expertise and is more than simply looking for graphical trends of, say, kWh per square foot.

Bill Holmes of Holmes Energy shared a story of an engineer in a steel mill who had servers full of years of data from every second from every system but had no budget, time or tools to make sense of it.

Many noted that flat energy priced elongate the ROI of meter investment and that few utilities currently provide incentive for behavior changes.

Several corporate sustainability managers mentioned the need for solutions that were corporate-wide (or at least corporate-wide across their largest facilities or across their stores or hotels).

Practical Solutions Emerge

Practical, workable and affordable solutions are emerging but all involve a combination of technology and human domain expertise (and increasingly this human expertise is at the vendor).

Our list of practical solutions does not yet not include solutions from utilities involving smart meters. While utility smart meters are a very important trend, they are only a part of and not the entire solution for organizations.   Utility smart meters provide only main meter data which is not load-specific and the utilities do not have domain experts to interpret the data.   Technology-only solutions (all the rage now with the “big data” trend are similarly insufficient).

We are impressed with solutions that are a cost-effective extension of the existing facility or energy management team since in general we don’t see companies en masse increasing the size of these teams. These solutions fall into three broad categories.

1. Outsourced energy analysis to interpret the data and generate proposed work orders. Here vendors have human energy analysts who interpret data for several clients at a time. (Vendor examples include Verisae, EnerNOC, Cimetrics, Schneider Electric, Ecova and others.)2. Outsourced monitoring and control of HVAC and lighting. Here a third party not only analyzes interval data but also remotely controls assets such as turning down temperatures or controlling lights based on weather or occupancy changes. (Vendor examples include Phoenix Energy Technologies and others.)3. Truly open BMS systems. Here organizations can easily provide multiple vendors access to submeter data from their BMS for analysis. (One example is Johnson Controls’ Panoptix Platform Services that enable facility managers to share data via APIs with third party vendors. Other BMS manufacturers are rumored to be headed in the same direction.)

The benefits and challenges of submeter data for energy reduction are well recognized. Because of small energy staff size and occasional skill set mismatches, solutions that are a mix of technology and outsourced domain expertise are currently the most promising.

Last year, if you had stuffed family’s stockings with the latest LED light bulbs, you would have been one very hip uncle or aunt.  But at $50 each, they would have been better gifts under the tree than in a stocking.  And if you had tried to save money by picking up less expensive, lower output, non-dimmable “cool” 5000K LED bulbs, your family members would have been underwhelmed. “Honey?  It kinda has that hospital feel….can you take it out?”

Now, one LED year later, the replacement for a 60 watt incandescent is ready for primetime.

This year at $15 per bulb you can stuff stockings with my personal favorite - a high quality Philips lamp - and not break the bank.  This lamp produces fully dimmable 2700K “warm” light with the only downside being it’s Hannibal Lecter-like design, which means you should keep it hidden under a lamp shade.  Once family members are hooked they’ll simply buy more on their next trip to Home Depot.  Or maybe while shopping for a new LED TV they’ll pick up this bulb recently introduced by BestBuy.

If you’re a gotta-have-the-latest technology enthusiast you could upgrade to the newest 100 watt equivalent LED bulbs like this one from Osram which like last year is $5o, but now with higher output.  For a more funky gift you could consider the Brookstone-like iPhone controllable LED bulbs from Philips (at your local Apple store), GreenWaveReality or Insteon.

For under the tree, you can splurge on the new, Internet accessible iPhonesque thermostat from Nest.   Control your home heating and air conditioning, all from your iPad, and save money managing the largest energy consuming system in your home.   For $250 on Amazon you can have it gift-wrapped and shipped directly to your favorite aunt, uncle (or yourself.)  Having shipped 300,000+ units in their first year of production, Nest’s customer service folks have turned supporting the weekend DIY installation into a science.  Email them a photo of your old wiring, use the color coded labels provided, add your home’s wireless network access code and away you go.

But it may be worth waiting until after the holidays to start your own install.  After the presents are opened Nest’s call center elves will likely be swamped.  If something goes wrong you’ll save money without any heat or AC, but try explaining that to a house full of holiday visitors.