Energy Management

kWIQly at EMEX Excel London Nov. 2015

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 17:53:00 +0000

Dear All

If you happen to be attending EMEX at Excel London tomorrow or Thursday 10th , 11th November - drop me a line via the networking app or email me.

More importantly do attend:
Theatre 2 Utility and Energy Services stream
Wednesday 15:45-16:00

My colleague George Catto will be giving a practical llustrated talk

'Find the hidden “DNA” in your AMR data'

The talk will include real world examples taken from AMR-DNA

For anyone who still questions the value of Smart Meters or AMR this will be a clarion call.

George will not only highlight benefits for energy managers, but will make it obvious how utilities can help their clients, improve engagement and deliver bottom line benefits through differentiation of their service offerings.

AMR-DNA is the tool Energy Assets PLC [LSE: EAS.L] built on top of the kWIQly energy waste search engine.

You will be able to find George on Wednesday or Thursday at stand F 12

Bogus claims for energy saving products (commentary)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 13:29:00 +0000

Vilnis Vesma recently wrote a detailed discussion on how energy fraudsters may trick their audience in his article: Twelve hallmarks of bogus claims for energy-saving products

Opinion : Vilnis is amongst the elite of commentators on effective energy management.

I agree with almost all he has written but felt some key points were worth emphasizing or expanding upon, or simply interesting - hence this post.

Disclosure: I attended the same college as Vilnis and have occasional non-commercial contact with him. He has not solicited nor endorse this response to his work.

Vilnis writes :

1. Failure to adhere to the known laws of science ...

The term ‘boiler’ is a misnomer because the water in contact with the heat transfer surfaces remains liquid. Were steam bubbles ever to form because of localized overheating or inadequate water flow you would get popping and clanging noises (“kettling”) caused by detached steam bubbles condensing and collapsing abruptly in the water away from the surface.

But we have to be careful with "The Laws of Science" and our understanding of "The Laws of Science" bearing in mind that certainly I (and I am sure Vilnis) would admit to really understanding a very few of the "Laws of Science"

So lets take a really simple example (and one that relates to Vilnis' film of steam that reduces heat transfer.

Can water flow uphill (of its own accord) ?

I would have to say yes - if pushed! (so try to stay aware of your own limitations)

There is a fascinating phenoemenon (and worth a few fun minutes of your time) called the Leidenfrost effect. It is brilliantly explained here which shows after a minute of explanation how water can actually navigate a maze... (and yes flow uphill)

Vilnis mentions:

2. Implausible percentage savings claims: more than anything, it is claims for savings of 20% or more which prompt people to become suspicious and contact me for my opinion. The problem is that some established technologies do achieve that (and more), so what is really at issue is the nagging question “if this is so good, why isn’t it fitted everywhere?”. Taken on its own, this is not evidence enough, although it is sometimes possible to show from engineering calculations that a claim is unlikely to be feasible. I return to this theme later but the enemy are not all stupid and there is a new breed smart enough to make a subtler pitch. Nobody would think a claim for six percent was suspicious.

I would simply note that we must distinguish efficiency and effectiveness. A car left running at the kerbside (with no driver) may be a tempting target for a crook. But consider that the effect of burning a litre of fuel is the same whether the car is a Formula 1 monster or an "economical" runabout for a house husband to do a little shopping. In short this sort of energy use isn't going anywhere. Since neither achieves anything (except helping warm the car on a cold morning) the use of energy is exactly equally wasteful. The rate of waste may be different, and the smaller car is more economical in use. By switching off the engine (when there is no intent to travel) we see 100% savings ! This emphasizes that savings "in normal use" is generally the right benchmark for the energy manager. Again this re-enforces getting the right sized power plant for the job, so over-sizing almost inevitably leads to waste.

Vilnis overlooks (to a pedant) the "inspection or 'regression to the mean' fraud" when considering installation. See also "Guess the sex of your child fraud"

3. Extreme ease of installation: it has to be just a simple additive, bolt-on, or electrical connection for two reasons. Firstly the salesman needs to put as few obstacles in your way as possible. Secondly it needs to be cheap for him to install and easy to remove (or abandon) when a diligent customer discovers it does not work.

The easiest way of achieving energy savings in half of the sites that you visit is to "wave a wand" chant some incantations perhaps (chanting is all you can do with them) and do nothing else. The cost and time to fit and remove is zero.

Absolutely nothing in the mechanical world operates without change. Performance hovers around average performance so ( absent a catastrophic or steady deteriorating tendency) if you compare any two periods for one system, half improve and half deteriorate. The fraud works as follows:

I will guess the sex of your unborn child for $1000 - If I get it wrong I will refund $1500 - so you cant lose !

Explanation - Clearly I add no value if I always guess with the assistance of a fair coin toss - but I will be right half the time (winning $1000) - the rest of the time I may have to refund $500 - On average given a good sample of suckers I cant lose !

The benefit of me being right is zero - exactly equal to the information bought.

By the way if you already know the sex of your child you can make money from the fraudster - if you are smart enough - Do discuss in the comments below if interested !

Just expanding on Vilnis' comments :

5. Analysis based on indirect measurements like reduced running hours: it is not safe to infer that reducing running hours reduces energy consumption. If you turn your heating off for ten minutes in every hour, for example, you will have an intermittent drop in space temperature and each time the heating system runs it will use extra fuel to restore the desired temperature.

Note the energy reduction is during the test period and the extra fuel immediately follows the test period - so by comparing on vs. off test rather than on (for a long duration) vs off test (prior to tests), the test shows savings that are relative to the wrong base.

In fact if a system is under less than 100% load a well "planned" test of this type can always show 100% apparent savings simply by "claiming" the slack in the system. I believe this is probably the biggest standard "clip on boiler sequencer" fraud out there. The parties involved change the name of their company / or operation fast enough that they can make money by duping the buyers while avoiding the law.

Vilnis talks about maintaining minimum temperature:

Remember in this case that heat is flowing out of the building all the time (even when the heating is off) and over the course of a day or a week, all the heat lost must be balanced by heat input, regardless of how intermittently it is supplied. In fact, to maintain the same minimum inside temperature with intermittent heat input, you would use more fuel by having to maintain a higher average.
Similar considerations apply to voltage reduction, in that any reduction in current, while proving a reduction in instantaneous power, does not take running hours into account. A thermostatically-controlled electric heater in particular will run for longer in order to deliver the required quantity of heat, negating any apparent savings inferred from a spot check.

This is 100% correct BUT there are two important related points:

Not all targets are constant - If you need a lower minimum temperature (say overnight) - then the target should always be lowered. Night setback recognises that people sleep lying down - and we lose heat faster standing up (like radiators we are vertically mounted when operational). So not only is our required body temperature lower (slowing metabolism) it also takes cooler conditions to maintain it. In this case eg in residential buildings (OR UNOCCUPIED BUILDINGS) we should always set minimum targets and maximum targets as liberally as possible - to allow the control system to trigger least spend.

This also assumes that say a boiler has efficient temperature modulation (many boilers run on-off using time modulation rather than temperature modulation). In boilers that have pre- and post- firing combustion chamber purges (pressurized rather than atmospheric boilers) a wider control band targeting minimum low return temperatures but firing to higher temperatures to prevent rapid cycling can be an efficiency boon (at times of less than 100% load - ie most of the year)

Vilnis is a little soft on secrets:

6. Secret ingredients or principles of operation: claims based on secrets are by their nature hard to assess in principle, so secrecy is the perfect cloak for trickery. However, if you are looking for a way to deter a persistent salesman, you can use secrecy against them. Just fall back on a health-and-safety argument. Ask for toxicity and materials-compatibility tests on any chemical constituents. And if somebody tries to sell you a magnetic device so powerful that it can affect oil or gas, ask for information about its effects on human tissue and body fluids.

In combination with Patents (a publication allowing reproduction of the benefit -"in theory") secrets do not hold water - patents are not secret - end of discussion.

If salesperson tells me they will use a secret means to help me save energy - they in my estimation almost certainly a charlatan. (It is acceptable for a salesman to admit they do not understand the technical detail of their product - but in this case they should have explanatory literature or technical back up. In general if you do not understand why it works it probably doesn't - so don't buy !

Vilnis on Patents (Note: for my sins I was an Assistant Patent Search Examiner in Europe for a while)

He is right ! -
1) I can think of no energy saving device that is creditable simply because it has a patent.
2) I can think of many that are not.
3) Many truly effective devices are patented - but the patent offers a temporary monopoly protection in exchange for publication - so
a) it is not secret,
b) the patent has no bearing on the efficacy

Vilnis on Social Proof

Vilnis covers testimonials, science, and accreditation and simple social "proof"

1) Your mileage may vary
2) Trust your scepticism - there are several billion people out there to give testimonials (some for hire)
3) Science is a debate - not a conclusion (A Physical Law is still only a tentative conclusion that has stood an extensive test of time - longer that say Biological Evolution Theory (and even more than mere conjecture)
4) Just because a million people believe something does not make it so

Regarding sales tactics - caveat emptor - buyer beware. A great way to stay aware is to follow Vilnis' blog in my opinion.

Verdantix - Industry brief about kWIQly

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 15:02:00 +0000

Who are Verdantix - why would they write about kWIQly?

Verdantix describe themselves:

... an independent research and consulting firm with expertise in EH&S, energy and sustainability markets. Through our research and advisory services we help corporate managers, investors, technology executives and services firm leaders to make robust, fact-based decisions. We are committed to delivering objective, timely and accurate analysis to help our clients succeed.

So why about kWIQly ?

Having named kWIQly as one of nine "Most Exciting Energy Management Companies to Watch in 2015" (free with login) it made sense for them to dive a little deeper as they are all about "delivering objective, timely and accurate analysis".

The result - a new report published yesterday titled New Entrant kWIQly Aims to Curtail Multi-Site SME's Gas Use raises questions I should address:

I won't expose detail as these are objective reports delivered for Verdantix clients, however the summary and contents page are public and "fair game".

Note: Overall I am happy with the report but amazed how some fundamental objective opinions about a subject (and one I should know inside out) can challenge pre-conceptions.

They introduced the energy efficiency market (which anyone reading here knows) and then summarised:

"Verdantix recently spoke with energy management software firm kWIQly’s CEO James Fergusson and Marketing Director George Catto, to hear how the firm plans to service the European SME market. Verdantix finds that kWIQly’s use of virtual audits and predictive maintenance diagnostics positions its solution for the multi-site SME market; however, kWIQly will need a diverse range of partnerships to crack open the market."

Dulcius Ex Asperis (Sweeter after difficulties) is the Ferguson clan motto:

Verdantix picked up fast on the "difficulties" we have faced - that "[we] need a diverse range of partnerships to crack open the market." Their analysis is right on the money...

It takes time to open any market with a transformative technology and the truly massive multi-site SME market represents a signature failure amongst energy management services and energy retailers. Possibly our biggest mistake was trying to do it ourselves!

Fortunately the "diverse range of partnerships" that we are building addresses this (though why it took us so long to figure out what Verdantix saw immediately pains me - I first blogged about it only about a year ago - Conflicts on the Ground that serve no purpose ).

Why energy services companies care

Faced with only on-line energy monitoring portal , companies not primarily focussed on energy, see energy management as a necessary evil. They have neither the time nor skill-set to trawl through reams of data to figure out what matters.

Service providers that want to differentiate themselves and support their client acquisition and retention models want to help out - so in turn we see a set of partners that need our help, are well-funded, and already have huge field sales forces that are delighted to offer something different.

So they need to learn that giving energy viewing portals that show what you are doing (passively) and in hindsight is of very little value.

Rather they should (and now can) pro-actively highlight what clients are doing wrong or more politically correct - identify their "opportunity for improvement". Then they can also support what needs to be done. This differentiates them from commodity sales channels.

Example - This distribution of logistics sites has a few outliers worthy of closer attention
see Red Pill or Blue Pill for an explanation

Finding opportunity for improvement and knowing what to do about it is pre-requisite to the job of any multi-site energy manager.

Verdantix pick up three chief strategic considerations:

Contents
kWIQly Provides Gas Consumption Analytics To Portfolios Of Multi-Site SMEs
kWIQly’s Data-Driven Services Fills A Facilities Management Gap For Multi-Site SMEs
Diverse Industry Partnerships Will Be The Key To kWIQly’s Growth Prospect

I will address them in turn:

Gas Consumption Analytics To Portfolios Of Multi-Site SMEs

I have written before that gas is tougher than electricity to meter and gas use is more complex (you generally see electricity in use but don't see heat, and gas is used before the heat can be distributed - so it is tougher to understand). But it is important to note that you cannot see electricity and gas use in isolation - a very common problem is where heating drives discomfort which is solved by electrically power cooling services. Waste correlates on each side of the coin and the correlation is a red flag !

I would also point out that many of our current engagements are with the very opposite of SMEs - For example we have looked energy data from six European supermarket chains (and the existence of common unobserved causes of waste is quite remarkable).

kWIQly’s Data-Driven Services Fills A Facilities Management Gap For Multi-Site SMEs.

When I wrote Happiness and the SME - lessons for Utilities I was trying to address the fact of the problem in the economic context of Multi-site SMEs (and bigger enterprises) and wrote :

"So SME profitability sensitivity to energy pricing is disproportionately high at times of low economic activity. Also, when as an SME you are not busy, it is one of the few times when you might be motivated to shop around for a better overhead prices. So utility client life-time value (before churn) is in turn strongly influenced by economic growth!"

It is not just the direct economics that are relevant to the energy service provider and their client - it is also the fact that whether it is your job say selling coffee on the high street or trading on wall-street - energy matters a) when you pay for it, b) when you aren't comfortable and c) when you are wrapped up in administering a thousand different supplier contracts.

Energy companies (and FM) are ideally positioned to diversify horizontally - and this is seen in acquisition activity in the marketplace. Additional points of contact make for cross-sales, and better (more helpful) relationships with clients.

Diverse Industry Partnerships Will Be The Key To kWIQly’s Growth Prospects

This for us is the big one ! An energy retailer or an FM can benefit more by working with us than we can charge for the relationship. This is simply because they have more invested in differentiating product and service offerings than we do, they have less time to study technical niches where specialist suppliers are strong, and are necessarily conservative because overhead kills commodity businesses!

In the next few weeks we will be announcing some partnerships that we have established (the ink is not quite dry on a significant one) and we would note that in the UK Energy retailers can now get our support indirectly through the recently launched AMR-DNA tool by Energy Assets plc. (I will be blogging about this separately).

We are particularly interested in establishing partnerships in Holland and Italy at present (where the inherent value in AMR data has been taken seriously so metering roll-out progress s relatively strong - If this is you do get in contact info@kwiqly.com - and we will be in touch.

James

Red Pill or Blue Pill?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 12:05:00 +0000

Today we will see what taking the red pill might look like from an energy management perspective...

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.

You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.

You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Remember: all I'm offering is the truth.

Nothing more.

Morpheus to Neo, The Matrix

When energy managers make tough choices it often revolves around what they know about and what they must learn.

A metaphor of knowing about an "Inconvenient Truth" and acting on energy waste fits reality well.

So presented with a means to know much more (and add to responsibilities thereby) we can imagine a Neophyte energy manager finding him or herself in a very different world than before they take the pill, bite the bullet, take the plunge or even eat from the Tree of Knowledge.

Imagine two of them side-by-side, each works for a retailer

(yes the data below is real but made anonymous and from two of the top ten UK retailers - by turnover).

They pop their pills, open their eyes (for the first time) and this is what they see:

(One chart above the other to fit the page)

Each coloured speck represents the record of gas consumption for a supermarket somewhere in the UK. Small blue specks that are densely clustered are normal and benign.

BIG RED PILLS are not!

Both energy managers have a few problems to sort out, and because they know how much they are wasting (based on seasonally adjusted precedent) on the y axis, and whether their gas consumption correlates to coldness (for heating) bottom axis (left = heating , right = cooling). They immediately know that some stores are behaving "purposefully", and some "consistently".

So this is the question - Would you want to know which colour your sites are ?

The trouble with information and yes it works for pub chains and utility companies, and schools and coffee shops is that it presents a choice.

Once it is out in the open, there is no putting it back in the box (Pandoras?) -
You can be accountable, or your sites can be held to account and you can either make things better or twiddle your thumbs.

So which will it be :

Please feel free to get in touch if you want some advice

+44(0) 1825 712800 or email

info@kwiqly.com

Active Demand / Demand response in short ; "buy now to beat the rush"

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 18:16:00 +0000

Hi - Very brief update

I am off to Rome later this week to a briefing by (Nov 2014)

at Enel Head Offices, who describe their mission as follows:

MISSION
Leveraging on the empirical data and lessons learnt in real Active Demand (AD) experiences, the overall objective of the 24 months project is to develop actionable frameworks enabling residential, commercial and industrial consumers to participate in AD.
Furthermore, the benefits of AD for the key stakeholders and the inherent impacts on the electricity systems considering its potential contribution to system stability and efficiency are to be quantified taking different scenarios into account.
This will be achieved through comparing the different AD solutions applied in Europe and enhancing them by the investigation of socio-economic and behavioural factors with direct involvement of real consumers.
On this basis, key success factors of AD and recommendations for the future design of AD programmes will be derived.

Equilibrium price under demand inelastaic and elastic demand (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In short it is about buying when demand is low for later usage - it helps the grid, the utilities, the clients (lower prices) and it helps the planet because it allows more efficient generating resources to be applied.

The notion is all about the micro-economics of the market:

I'm looking forward to conversations with some of the interesting attendees, both guests and from amongst the partner organisations:

So if you happen to be in Rome this week and want to talk about Active Damand / Demand Response and/or how kWIQly can uncover load rescheduling opportunities from energy data (whether attending or not) do drop me a line to james @ kwiqly.com and we will see if we can catch up.

Best James

The easy way to accept Bitcoin micropayments on your blogger account

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 19:57:00 +0000

I was at AVC today (a great entrepreneurs blog) and read this http://avc.com/2014/11/coinbase-tip-widget about a new way of exchanging funds legally and securely at VERY low overhead.

The Concept of Bitcoin Micro-payments

The bitcoin tipping button by Coinbase

This "tip button" allows you take micro donations in Bitcoin if people appreciate your posts. (You will see I have already "harvested" 550 bits at the time of writing).

So pressing on the Bitcoin "Tip" as shown ( top right of my blog ) will donate an small amount of Bitcoins to me.

It is only set to "300" bits or 0.0003 bitcoins by default and at the time of writing that's about 10 cents US as a "bit" is 1 millionth of a Bitcoin

This all supposes the reader/donor has an account set up to pay bitcoins, because they are very secure - you cant give what you haven't got. (If not https://www.coinbase.com/ is a good place to get informed)

Note: Neither kWIQly nor I have any commercial interest in coinbase (other than curiosity)

This can be used to fund pretty much any product or service (but keep it clean - it is your choice how you spend your life). But as an "early adopter" - I thought this would be useful to lots of potential bloggers, musicians etc (so I thought I would help spread the word - It could also be a way of driving down global transaction payments so for example more of charitable spend can be applied to the cause).

How to put it on your site :

Visit http://blog.coinbase.com/post/102957332182/introducing-the-coinbase-tip-button - it really explains everything you need to know.

For me (my blog sits on the blogger platform kwiqly.com is hosted elsewhere) this meant:

1) opening up my browser at https://www.coinbase.com/tip (logged into my account) and clicking

2) Selecting defaults in my case (and when logged in) and then copying the javascript (below)

3) Going to my blog layout editor (this for blogger) YMMV and selecting layout (below in orange)

4) Select add a HTML/Javascript widget

Pasting the script in the box and job done -

Then all you do is save the changes and watch the money mount up.

(To be honest this is an experiment for me and if the box top right never again changes I wont mind (and thanks to the coinbase team for donating my first receipt !)

Engerati Interviews kWIQly at European Utility Week

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 18:21:00 +0000

Adam Malik of Engerati interviews kWIQly at European Utility Week

This 10 minute video does a great job (Thanks Adam ! ) of covering the stamping ground where kWIQly works in laymans terms.

The chat ranges from Energy Management to Demand Response (which was definitely flavour of the week at the show, but which must carefully distinguish shifting waste from eliminating waste - both have a role to play), from the problems of utilities finding candidates who can switch off chillers, to the pub owner who has left his heating on while the drinkers are propping the door open, through hospitals who have their time-clocks 12 hours out of sync !

We had a great series of meetings at the show - and will be there again next year. After shouting out a special thanks to @Engerati and Stuart Neumman @Verdantix for his kind words (and fascinating viewpoints), its worth mentioning a few companies we spoke to who are up to some really interesting things in the fields of Grid Optimisation & Resilience, Demand Response, Metering and Meter Asset Management and moving into the energy management analytic's sphere where we work - They are (alphabetically - no particular order)

ABB

IBM

Itron

Landis+Gyr

Schneider

Tata

Trilliant

With a special mention to Engineering.it from Italy who had a very cool demo of virtual viewers for looking down meter holes to see connections and plate data, and a really cool pattern recognition drone solution (in the field in South America where regulation is a little freer) for first responders to gas and water leak which integrates with their GEOCALL solution. I should mention extensively enjoying their local artisanal products (Parma Ham, Parmesan and Bubbly - What's not to like ? :)

We were also interested to talk to a number of companies who have energy analytics platforms but who focus more on behaviours and customer engagement than we do. A brief list must include (again alphabetically) and don't be surprised to see products partnerships appear on these platforms in this still new and fast growing industry.

Dexma

OPower

SimpleEnergy

Oh - and finally we are off to see Enoro AG next week who have an office just down the road in Zurich and are using some of the same great technologies we use, but who really help Grid Operators see data more effectively

For me the highlight of the week was to have our team together doing business and feel that the industry is rapidly waking up to opportunity. The watchwords of the week were Demand Response, Grid Analytics, Energy Analytic Platform Solutions. See you next year !

Conflicts on the ground that serve no purpose

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 18 Oct 2014 17:25:00 +0000

I received the folloing tweet from engerati (if you are in energy join - its free and excellent http://www.engerati.com/ )

Since this post was there - I thought I better put it here too !

@kWIQly Hi James, I read your blog yesterday - LOVED IT. We don't currently provide stats to members but it's in the pipeline. Sorry!
— The Engerati Network (@Engerati) October 9, 2014

A different type of conflict

Utility companies are no strangers to "conflict on the ground" when it comes to large scale geo-politics. One needs hardly mention The Gulf, Nigeria, Ukraine and even historically Tobruk, or more surprisingly The Falklands to realise that a battle for scarce resources is nothing new. However, this is not the battle we are addressing here.

Our conflict occurs when mismatched intents between building services, powered by gas and electicity come into play. Though each is small, unnoticed and imperceptible, they are nearly omnipresent eternal and their impact is huge.

Consider this: The IPCC and WCSBD together calculate that around 12% of global energy is wasted in buildings (29% of the 40% used). Obviously this represents the normal or "businesss as usual".

A simply corollary is that "exception based reporting" (the basis of 99% of commercial aM&T software) is utterly useless in this context. If it is normal, it is unexceptional and so this 12% of global energy flies "beneath our radar" (as waste).

Throw away counsels of despair

There is no point simply observing that a situation is broken. It is; and let me briefly define the problem, but let us then examine what needs to be done (as it is relatively simple).

The battleground:

When analysing energy use, the need to understand the stated purpose of consumption is implicit. It would be a better defined world if it were explicit.

Energy managers "chalk-up" energy consumption to causal factors of consumption (the "drivers"). Typically most are overlooked, but common considerations include (occupancy - no point cooling an unoccupied building), the weather (how hot or cold is it), the target "comfort" conditions, and exceptional items like school holidays, heating outside occupancy for fabric protection.

To the extent that these drivers together fully explain variations in consumption, we can assume well-managed energy use.

But they do not ! - Granted most utilities provide data-viewing apps, that feed back pretty graphs of consumption, or benchmarked comparitives of performance within a class of building types

Existing Analytics tools are not fit-for-purpose:

While you as the provider of a utility (say electricity) cannot explain to your client how much of their energy is wholly wasted in negating the effects of their overuse of another utilities resources (say gas), using your best data scientists - I would argue the system is broken, because it appears neither client nor supplier knows the benefits of the facilities provided (despite knowing the quantity sold).

This is a strategically significant statement -

"Utility companies cannot in general quantify their core value-proposition to their clients"

The solution is relatively simply defined, and is available based on metering techniques and analytics alone.

Selling Holes not Drills

Going one step further for your clients is easy if you are armed with a few bits of data.

Imagine a pub where the landlord responds to complains of cold by turning the thermostat up, and the drinkers respond to heat by leaving the doors and windows open. Now drive through any city on the planet and see how many centrally serviced buildings have their doors and windows open.

"This problem is so common, that people laugh about it."

Now, suppose you are armed with outside temperature and gas consumption histories. It is not rocket-science to come up with an email that says -

"At this temperature last year you were using X kW but now you are using twice as much (turn the thermostat down and make sure doors and windows are closed) and comfort is still possible"

If you consider that weather is a legitimate driver of heating consumption, it is a small step to recognise that money spent on cooling (usually electrically driven) is always an illegitimate driver of heating consumption.

It's a simple argument, but until utilities (or their service representatives) provide both electricity and gas data for a building in a single analytical context (even at a fiscal meter level without sub-metering) they cannot possibly know how much of the utility is useful and how much is simply encouraging their clients to look elsewhere causing competitive:

"conflicts on the ground that serve no purpose!"

originally posted on engerati.com

Happiness and the SME - lessons for Utilities

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 14:50:00 +0000

Happiness and the SME

The word energy derives from the Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια energeia “activity,operation”, which possibly appears for the first time in the work of Aristotle in the 4th century BC.

When Aristotle used it he was referring to human activity as in life-force or energetic activities - or even happiness and pleasure. - This is still true in the SME segment today !

Happiness of an SME with their utility provider is inextricably linked to how busy they are !

Reason:

Energy use is correlated to economic activity, but as activity drops to zero, energy use in an SME does not (you have to keep the lights on even if you are just drumming up sales, and the pub better be comfortably warm even if you only have one-or two punters at the bar).

So SME profitability sensitivity to energy pricing is disproportionately high at times of low economic activity. Also, when as an SME you are not busy, it is one of the few times when you might be motivated to shop around for a better overhead prices. So utility client life-time value (before churn) is in turn strongly influenced by economic growth!

Result:

"Utility client life-time value (before churn) is strongly influenced by market rates of economic growth !"

SME is an important and unique Market Sector for Utilities

It is obvious why the SME market is very important to Utilities.

In 2010, there were over 20.8 million enterprises active in the non-financial
business sector in the European Union, of which 99.8% were SMEs.

About 92% of the total business sector consists of micro enterprises, which employ fewer than 10 persons. The typical European firm is a micro firm.

About 67% of the employment in the non-financial business economy is provided by SMEs. Micro enterprises contribute about 30%, small enterprises about 20% and medium-sized enterprises about 17%. Source (EU study) pdf

SME is an important and unique Market Sector for Governments

It is no surprise that Governments seek to promote SME utility competition. In the UK the regulator advises businesses on switching and their rights and earlier this year brought in new measures to encourage switching and freedoms.

This brings up an interesting debate. It seems on the face of it that governments wants SMEs to be sensitive to energy usage and energy prices - because it is good for the economy and the climate (and votes - cynically).

However switching adds overhead so SME can be hurt through unintended consequences!

In a deregulated competitive marketplace for a commodity "super-normal profits" should tend to zero - that is if we believe in "perfect competition theory" :)

Economic Idealism (has some merit but also carries caveats)

So an efficient utility company (absent cartel activity and ant-trust behaviours) should only make enough money to just warrant staying in business !

Amazingly - We do not hear a public outcry in support of our beleaguered utility companies - so we must suspect something else to be the case. Since a large proportion of utility costs relate to attracting and retaining clients, it is reasonable to assume that perfect competition is not a reality.

A dose of reality

Under perfect competition there is transparent pricing from identical suppliers and no switching impedance.

However one form of switching impedance is ignorance - this is the source of much debated "roll-over contracts"

Research by Make It Cheaper in 2011 showed that 96% of business owners said it would be easier to manage their energy contracts if contract end dates were printed on bills. It predicts that clearer bills could save businesses more than £1 billion.

In truth the battle for transparency is being won so we must exect utility conflict to move to a different playing field, for example E.on made a splash changing its attitude to rollover contracts for SME's last year. This is an attempt to differentiate on the basis of relationship.

Key Strategic Note:

Service differentiation in a commodity market is much cheaper that competing on price and with marketing budgets if it can be achieved.

On a more cynical note:

I have heard it mentioned that if you spam an SME with enough marketing rubbish, messages about switching opportunities will be lost and switching reduced. This cynical approach to avoid churn will back-fire as surely as you (dear reader) learn to ignore email spam ! It may work temporarily but it is short-sighted and stupid.

So what's the poor utility to do ?

Utilities are under assault on a number of fronts, especially in deregulated markets.

These include feed-in from alternatives, market price volatility, ever more sophisticated price comparisons, compliance regards carbon etc and of course nobody expects the public or politicians to feel for them, any more than the public feel sorry for the bankers or politicians themselves.

However, the nature of these threats to "business as usual" has the effect of cornering utilities with regard to their business models. Just as a cornered wild-cat will inflict damage to protect its' interests, we can see signs that utilities will be fighting back.

Utilities will be fighting back

Since we at kWIQly work for utilities (and for their clients - reducing energy waste really is a win-win !), we have been watching this and we believe we can prognosticate a little :

The traditional problems utilities faced were about navigating compliance and market regulation, and they become ever more costly (which ultimately hurts the client). The raw material provided (the kWh) has become lost in the picture, but two changes are emerging.

In Commercial and Industrial Markets (particularly in the UK) AMR roll-out is becoming a reality. However there is resistance from SME who do not look at energy management data monthly - let alone half hourly.

It seems clear that a service to "engage" the SME is needed. It must be attractive and "permission based", and deliver contacts that are timely, pertinent and actionable.

There is also the emergence of real energy insights using pattern recognition techniques that have emerged from the world of big data.

We imagine before long we may see the emergence of Utility "Service Charters" (We are already in the process of helping to define "the art of the possible" with some European Utilities.

These will promise certain valuable deliverables, and in exchange they will underpin a new type of client relationship. We are not talking about loyalty cards, or engagement "points" for prizes. Rather we foresee a simple set of promises that allows the SME to "opt out" of the rat-race, save time and still get a better deal, on buying less energy to achieve their core business objectives. In exchange the utility sees benefits of lower client acquisition costs, and possibly alternative revenue streams (through inbound cross-sales).

The simple fact is that with a meter reading arriving every few minutes, the opportunity to completely bore a client with data (even in what your IT team promise are pretty dashboards and graphs) is nearly overwhelming.

Ask this :

"How many mobile SME users will regularly engage with your energy apps ?"

If you aren't sure - take a guess at zero and work out what this means !

To get an idea of what might actually be possible start here.

Meet kWIQly at European Utility Week

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 13:18:00 +0000

Will you be at European Utility Week in Amsterdam 4th - 6th November?

The kWIQly team will be!

Mainly we will be visiting existing clients who have stands at the exhibition and attending intersting workshops, but we know a few of you (readers) might be attending and would think it worthwhile to exchange notes.

If so - there are three options, in ascending preference order:

1) Pot luck - Just be there and we may bump into you (click below to visit the registration page)

http://www.european-utility-week.com/Registrations

2) Contact us in advance - we will be happy to schedule a meeting with one or more of the team

Please just mention some contact details at the bottom of our home page

kwiqly.com and we will get in touch

3) Best of all - You are exhibiting yourselves - Again let us know via the contact form and we will visit you at your stand (Guaranteed)

What are we doing there?

Briefing clients on new offerings:

The ability to plan weather energy budgets at high resolutions (half-hour)
New Pattern recognition modules (eg identifying when "hand control" is better than boiler sequencing modes)
Identifying long term "non-exceptional" enegry waste causes

+ Saying hello, to new acquaintances - we would love you to be one !

James Interview at RBS Innovation Gateway

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:45:00 +0000

A brief interview at RBS Innovation Gateway recently

So a twinkle in my eye, a fun day, but in serious need of a beard trim

Other 2 Degress Network Videos here

RBS Innovation Gateway - To see what this rather cool initiative is all about

2 Degrees Network

Google outsmarts the smart grid

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 12:16:00 +0000

Will Google take a multi-trillion dollar industry to the mat?

In the press this week Bloomberg broke a story:
Google Said to Plan Energy Push With Tools for Utilities

and Forbes responded

Three reasons google might be serious about the grid

As noted this is probably an alternative to the energy saving play Google made some years back http://www.google.com/powermeter/about/

They backed out of powermeter in late 2011, surrounded by rumours that the utilities did not want to play ball (i.e. share their client data with Google ) despite Big Data analytics being of obvious potential interest to their end-user clients.

If so the game-plan for the utilities may have back-fired as this new Google approach looks far better thought through and far more of a threat to the utilities.

But these articles miss the point !

Why ? - While united the Smart Energy Demand Coalition is far more interesting than any individual utility (because it represents an umbrella concept) , I believe Google is finding a path straight to the money!

Members of Smart Energy Demand Coalition might all want to watch Google:

SEDC Executive Members - An influential bunch (particularly in Europe)

A little background - The Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) market is a $multi-billion land grab that is going on with big utilities, and big metering operations participating. Note: the smart meter industry is a tiny subset of AMR

However it is famously said that:

During a gold rush you want to be either the guy selling picks and shovels or the gal making the jewellery.

I believe (and suspect Google sees) that these players are all leaving most of the money on the table,

SEDC Associate Members - No less impressive Global Titans here too!

This team looks pretty Smart to me to so how can Google Outsmart them ?

This play is more mature -

Absent deregulated markets utilities "own" their clients ( In the US location largely determines your utility provider) .

So deregulated markets face more competition than US counterparts (like uncompetitive providers of last mile ISP access in the US).

Maybe this is why the SEDC first sprang up in Europe as brain child of VaasaETT (The Global Energy Think Tank)

However, even in the US there is a "bigger grid" where loads can be advantageously shed between states (because time-zones and weather events and hence demand are highly regionalised too).

In this market the infrastructure provider is key and no utility can own the market. So Google can access this without co-operation or partnership from utilities, because those that will not sit at this table will lose!

And here is the winning play

If Google can also deliver demand intelligence (via some grid independent API) at the point of use they can effectively cut out the utility entirely (except as low-margin commodity provider).

The point is that however big the AMR market is, the main purpose of that market is to deliver efficiency and data intelligence to end users and support them better by smarter matching of supply to demand.

Almost universally providers of meter data also provide visualisations (charts) because it is easy.

Very few offer analytics (kWIQly clients are an exception), and we know Google is in this market. It is acting on intelligence delivered by analytics that is where the value lies.

The domain intelligence and pattern recognition that can unbundle value from these near infinite (and fast growing) data streams and then package it up as simple sophisticated solutions is worth a lot. It scales and reduces utilities back to what they are - a pure commodity play.

Prognosis

It is very simple and needs only a superficial understanding of how industrial disruption ( http://www.claytonchristensen.com/books/the-innovators-dilemma/ ).

Either existing industries (AMR, Utilities, Construction and Heavy machinery) will collaborate to deliver the value the markets (and Climate Change) are crying out for, or Google will pip them at the post.

The requirements are really quite simple -

1) Good real-time tariff APIs for end-users (via packaged intelligence) to know what energy costs and likely will cost

2) Ability to mine for energy saving opportunity in AMR data (pattern recognition)

3) Connectible plant that can exploit the opportunities so discovered automatically

Either this will be delivered piecemeal (and a later consolidation and sharing of protocols will happen) or it will be delivered via a protocol open to all from the start - which will freeze out Google as a commodity provider (except where they really have the specialised domain expertise ).

Punditry

As a big player in this field you need to prepare three things:

A collaborative attitude with peers (utilities and network infrastructure must play well with competitors via open protocols etc - so that specialist service providers have access to the field)
Emergent domain specialist operations (kWIQly is a bit too small just yet) must be hand-held to break into big markets (in land-grab markets first entrants that scale fast hold long term estate value)
A dialogue with existing (commodity clients) that can up-sell and cross-sell new differentiated value propositions identified as suiting them from their energy data - this will reduce churn (enhance client retention) and convert their data into an asset - rather than leaving it unexploited in a database.

As a smaller niche player:

It's all about exposing value (eg via APIs) and creating value propositions that exploit network effects (Small businesses or startups that do not understand this concept need to) and being prepared to partner for growth (rather than trying to row organically) - because speed is of essence.

As Google

Define the Smart Demand/Supply interfaces to allow the niche products to bypass the utilities with readily installable Gizmos and cut out the middle man. (Maybe acquire these once they show traction)

Meanwhile provide a set of tools that utilities must use (or suffer the consequences) to ensure their adoption of your API's - Oh but you are doing that already !

Who thinks the Startup Incubator model is broken

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 22 May 2014 13:51:00 +0000

While RBS do not explicitly state the Startup Incubator Model is broken, they are sure throwing a spanner into the works of "business as usual".

The Startup Incubator Model is broken !

RBS Group is more than a highstreet bank LSE: RBS wiki despite not so long ago (2009) being the worlds largest company by both assets and liability measures it is now 81% owned by UK Gov.

The UKGov is not a hotbead of innovation - The Speaker in the Lords still sits on a woolsack to celebrate their illustrious past.

Experienced engineers often say - If it ain't broke don't fix it!
however with RBS weighing in at a mere £20B market capitalisation just five tumultuous years later, a bit of fixing may be in order.

They seem to be taking change seriously.

I was lucky enough to be picked with my colleague George to attend an event with a difference yesterday at the RBS Innovation Gateway inaugural networking session.

The biggest takeaway for me (beyond enjoying a great session) was that it crystallized some thoughts I have been having in terms of broken mentoring and Incubator models over the past year. In fact it made them obvious.

I had seen what i thought was a serious problem in B2B innovation that will not be solved without disruption. However the disruption came from the last place I anticipated.

What am I getting at?

A room full of "Mature" individuals

Look at the people in the room

Now consider them as tech. founders and startup evangelists
- what do you notice ?

Hint - How old are freshly hatched chicks?

People talk of business evangelism so when Paul said to Timothy:

"Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity."

He didn't mean us ! :)

In contrast with the normal startup scene gathering at a Seedcamp mentoring session or rockstart accelerator these people (myself included and with some notable exceptions) are getting pretty bloody old !

Why is this ? My answer is not a rant, more an argument to "choose horses to suit courses"

There are two sides to the coin.

The B2C innovation market has been driven by the social media startup (round up the usual suspects), introduced some excellent taxi-hailing apps, provided the means to find a place to lay your head overnight and serves big data.

These requisite skills are largely driven by the worldly experience as may be gained by a schoolgirl or boy or college graduate, fired by the enthusiasm of youth, and with all the passion of a toddler who is prepared to run full tilt at a table enough times to realise that such things hurt !

While "getting on an aeroplane to attend a business meeting" soon loses its charm. In the mould of Silicon Valley they rightly refuse to fear failure (there are no lasting consequences), they are as good as their pitch (but not necessarily as their word), and are prepared to move a few thousand miles or kilometers from loved ones for a crack at hatching a scheme in an incubator. They deserve the chance.

For every few dozen eggs that are incubated a few emerge and one or two may become unicorns (mixin: metaphors from the investor perspective). There is a lot of "follow" investment chasing these markets, so either an investor has great deal-flow because he or she contributes or they become a useless commodity overhead which could be replaced by a more efficient investment market index. (Sorry if the truth hurts)

The flip-side is still in the air but

RBS just reminted the coin!

YES RBS have failed - they are a banking institution after all (and I too admit to some feelings of mild schadenfreude). They also stand to be disrupted (bitcoin etc).

But somehow they have the maturity to survive (founded 1727) - Did you ever notice that banking and education (who teach the markets) are amongst the most conservative and successful long term organisations? These are not the lean, the fail-fast, the "can I have a do-over?" market. They are the proven, the battle-scarred and weather-beaten, the worldly wise survivors of great conflicts.

And they are being told to innovate,

by the markets and by the educational institutions.

Companies are even forming to promulgate such aims (yesterday Market Gravity did a great job).

However, when you consider energy and waste, you are talking timeless human needs (rules do not change, experience is invaluable) that applied equally to your average cave-girl or cave-man (who probably looked a lot less pretty than Raquel Welsh and perhaps more like Oetzi who emerged from a Glacier in the Alps a few years back

Raquel - not so much !

Well dressed, a great set of tools -
looked like he knew a thing or two.

Neither sustainability nor survival

is a beauty contest

They don't have such wide appeal because engineering is like this - unforgiving!

Many die but some survive. Like me they may be opinionated, will not go live in a commune on ramen noodles for three months, may know far less about social media than they do about high voltage powerlines, waste water treatment, emerging materials science or in our case diagnosing energy waste. But even at 40-50 years old they still have passion , they are in the game, their word is proven, and their experience tested. These are friends worth having in a crisis, they have real networks in real life.

So, while VCs and even the odd Metropolis funds yet another round of cookie cutter college apps, or host another clutch of eggs in their incubators, I think RBS is in effect saying - "Hold on a minute !"

"Don't kill the Golden Goose, why not teach these old dogs some new tricks, and maybe, just maybe some of these bloody ugly ducklings will emerge as beautiful".

One key to B2B success is understanding problems with deep domain knowledge, experience in surviving complex environments, and getting to know your friends.

RBS has a huge property portfolio and some fascinating sustainability challenges.
It isn't an incubator and the set up looks more like a gladiators arena, but the great thing is I bet there will emerge more than one winner !

Exhibiting timeless wisdom RBS just invited an industry to a great feast. LK 14 15,24. explains clearly who the winners and losers will be. You only need to show up - but do you have fields to attend or somewhere else to be ?

Breakfast and Bed - Reverse Engineering Triumph

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 14:27:00 +0000

Last week I visited three truly world-class companies who are active in the building services arena.

I can't reveal names but for fun I aggregated some quick statistics:

Combined turnover was 137 $ Billion

This is what One Billion $ looks like !

imagine 137 of those - it could really wear a hole in your pocket

Combined Employed staff exceeds 408,000 , that's more than the population of Nice in France,

And that's a Nice crowd!

or even Tulsa, Oklahoma !

Tulsa - Never been there - but if you're going there's plenty to sing about

So annual turnover per employee is more than 250,000 US

That sum is rather greater than the modest beer tab I ran up in the fantastic B&B where I stayed near Gatwick Airport

http://www.thecornerhouse.co.uk

No your eyes do not deceive:

Yes that is a Lotus Evora parked by the front door !
Click to Enlarge

So, to the boring part of the blog...(c'mon you can handle it)

What does a Lotus Evora, the worlds Greatest Engineering Companies, a Great Bed and Breakfast and Me have in common ?

To answer I will be criticising the B&B (a little), but not before adding; fantastic food (The Whitebait was really spectacular), really friendly staff and a 24hr service to Gatwick and local rail stations and sensible prices.

The title of this post was "Breakfast and Bed - Reverse Engineering Triumph". I will explain this but first let me point out that most (over 90%) of big buildings have exactly the same problem as this small B&B has in some form or another. So to the explanation.

It looked rather like this

As I sat having my Full English Breakfast, I realised that I knew what the heating pipework system must look like (is it just me or does that sort of thing happen to you too ?).

So this is where the reverse engineering comes in...

The normal approaches to energy waste

You see we commonly look at energy consumption, and tell people what they have wrong in their buildings by recognising patterns (usually working with VERY large engineering companies on behalf of their clients), we then explain the comfort and cost implications.

We also often look at what buildings have wrong and back this up with engineering theory, show the energy waste, and explain the comfort implications.

On this occasion I found myself doing the very opposite.

So this is the normal story (many of you reading this will have heard this brief story and seen the accompanying graphs from me before but the interesting part is that the engineering is reversible)

First - We show a graph where heating energy consumption is systematically higher in Spring than Autumn despite similar weather conditions (below is a pub showing 23% waste caused by making clients uncomfortable)

Pale Blue bounds different monthly average consumption (vertical) at the same average monthly temperatures (horizontal)

Then - we explain this in the context of a pub (where in the UK the economic crisis has been forcing may to close).

"As Autumn closes in temperatures fall (pun;) and clients get cold. So landlords turns up thermostats. In spring clients get hot so they open windows and leave doors open - Voila - waste as a response to discomfort. Later an observant client says `hey the doors open but the heating's on' and things return to normal (happens at around 12.5C on graph above)"

We finally conclude - Obviously this is silly ! From personal experience I have seen in in pubs, restaurants, hotels, office blocks, prisons, factories, schools (need I go on). BUT I have never reversed engineered it !

The solution is simple - correct compensation previous post, but this is what happened to me last week and it's rather different...

I arrived on a pretty horrid delayed flight out of Basel, was picked up at the airport, and five minutes later chatted happily as I registered. I was taken to a smallish, but clean room and closed the door behind me. I then stopped breathing !...

It was so hot I ran to the window to open it. I then isolated the radiator in the bedroom and the one in the en-suite bathroom. But still it stayed hot. I went and ate, and (after some beers while tidying a presentation for the next day, I returned to my room) - It was still too hot. so I slept with the window open in March in the UK !

The next morning I showered, went to breakfast and realised that despite TRVs (thermostats on radiators that respond to hot rooms), the entire heating system was overly hot - there was no direct compensation to weather (this is common in Europe with Germany, Scandinavia and Switzerland providing notable exceptions).

So I also knew that there was no bypass loop (to prevent unwanted hot water flowing round the whole hotel and to trigger early shut-down of the boiler) and therefore no valve mechanism to drive it.

Given that sometimes I can't help myself, I mentioned this to the owner over breakfast (delightful chap - nice car) who proudly showed me his new heating system

But who then confirmed that on warm mornings he tells cleaning staff to shut valves on radiators and on cold mornings he tells them the opposite!

The fundamental control system is the discomfort of guests, who regulate the rate of waste to match personal preferences !

There is a very easy fix for this hotel, and I will be returning (it is so good), so in a few weeks I hope to take a photo of the system and will provide a bit of "free advice" which if the owner is happy I will publish here.

A quick primer on direct compensation the idea behind the fix is here - but now (after my reverse engineering breakfast) I know from personal experience that the advice we have been giving is spot on !!!

Finally - What relates great engineering companies, the operator of this B&B, and the full English breakfast to a Lotus Evora ?

"A demand for excellence, coupled with determination to deliver and improve !"

The conversational smart-meter

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 16:00:00 +0000

Automatic meter readings tie consumption to a time-stamp in a data base.

Since logged readings answer - " How much energy was used at time X ? ",

this really cannot be considered smart (even if it does involve a pretty chart).

So what is considered smart ?

Useful services can "wrap around" energy data to begin to appear "smart". So here is a scale of increasing "smartness"

Services may;

provide a stream of interpretation or a display

- but this can easily be listened to or ignored so call this "smart",

slightly better they may;

react conditionally to thresholds

- less likely to be ignored, but not very good without user context
so call this "smarter",

better yet they might allow;

a user to define their context and then answer appropriately to that context
so call this "smartest", This starts to addresses the audience question of my previous post

Note : way beyond "smartest" there is also kWIQly - but that isn't the point of this post!

An example to illustrate might be helpful (the first level is rather obvious but the others may not be):

Illustrations; ~~Fairly dumb~~ smart, smarter, smartest:

1) smart - a stream of data displayed...

Have you ever noticed when a clock stops ticking ?

Humans have highly developed skills to "tune-out" noise, even from their own children.

Is this a stream of fascinating insights ?

or perhaps it is a gripping read ?

We know anything "always on" but not threatening or vital - is soon ignored

(isn't exactly that the cause of much energy waste)

For example - do you have anything held to your fridge with a magnet ?

If so think back to the last time you noticed what it says ?

Easy to ignore ?

"To be effective a smart-meter needs to be more compelling than a screaming kid"

Yes, perhaps that is "a big ask" but it is also a reasonable objective - so let's look again to see if this passes...

This just "screams" energy waste doesn't it !

2) smarter - interactively addressing specific questions

Now imagine a smart-meter where you can set thresholds and above the threshold an alert is sent (to a designated listener !).

There are several SaaS companies that let you do this. However, if your use case is even remotely complex (you use more gas in winter for heating), it needs to be maintained (whether by you or the service) or it becomes worse than useless - You have configured something designed to interrupt - but it interrupts at the wrong time!

There are also some simple ways around this (eg tracking recent mean deviations and volatility) but unless you have a good underlying model (understanding what constitutes a valid alert you will end up with a version of the boy that cried wolf - as in Aesop's fable

English: The illustration by Francis Barlow of the fable "The Boy who Cried Wolf",

called by him DE PASTORIS PUERO ET AGRICOLIS, 1687 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is obviously a way of inspiring great music - but not so good for a smart meter.

By the way - why not do yourself a favour -

watch this video with your children this evening

(bookmark it if you want)

Warning: frightening for the very young

They will love you all the more (your time inspires their growth) - it delivers a simple cool morality message - they will learn of marvellously inspiring classical music that really talks to the story and

you can enjoy the superb animation !

Something for everyone, - as they say in US of A land : "What's not to like ? !"

By the way if you love it - please share it !

As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself...

"- interrupting yourself is not always a good idea from a smart-meter"

So we move on to what we can consider the smartest -

3) Smartest - "a user can define their context and the "smart-meter" can answer questions appropriately to that context"

When looking at smart functionality it is important to isolate different aspects of "smart". For example the interface presented to the user may be elegant, snappy and easy to use, or ugly, slow and a nightmare (I won't show any examples here).

It might be equally be text based, numeric, iconic or graphic, but presentation issues do not determine the "smartness" of the capability. (Though the user experience or "UX" as it is known is unquestionably an extremely aspect of any product or service that aspires to frequent use).

So we do not "care" (for the purpose of this conversation) how information is represented or conveyed, we care about the underlying "intelligence". Ie what work the smart-meter can do that is "smart". This is like saying when we choose a doctor we are more concerned by his or her training and experience than their social standing, looks, golf handicap or bedside manner (even though these may help doctors market themselves).

The most famous determination of the quality of artificial intelligence is the Turing Test from wikipedia

"The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. In the original illustrative example, a human judge engages in natural language conversations with a human and a machine designed to generate performance indistinguishable from that of a human being."

So we might consider the "conversations" that a smart-meter could have with the user, and judge whether these convincing or not. If they are - it is smart.

Note: kWIQly while can deliver one side of this conversation - as a pre-requisite - solutions are built on top. We also do not claim to have invented any intelligence here - merely an artificial simulation in a limited area that is constrained to asking and answering very stylized questions

I want you to imagine yourself as "user" in the following dialogue. This starts to represent what is now possible for the smartest of smart meters. The user represented (that is you) is assumed to be pretty well versed in energy management - it would be possible to repeat this for a much more lay-user ("who only just gets a thermostat")

User: "Please note that the following days are school holidays:"

List of holidays goes here (and is applied to all the meters in the school district)

Smart-Meter(s): "Got it"

User: "During weekends the school is closed, during holidays unless flagged the school is closed, during school-days occupancy is from 08:00 to 16:45"

Smart-Meter(s): "Got it"

User: "Gas use relates to cooking, heating and domestic hot water, comfort heating is required during occupancy and to protect fabric in school holidays under extreme weather conditions, but not at weekends"

Smart-Meter(s): "Got it" -

Note this was all setting context and was like data entry - now it gets interesting

User: "Which school has the most individual days of holiday where consumption is more consistent with school days than holidays?"

Smart-Meter from one school : "Check this out;"

User: "OK - So on days when temperatures are in the range seen last week -

at what time of day is most energy wasted (please band the answer by level of waste) across all schools ?"

Smart-Meters ; "You mean something like this;"

"On the most wasteful days most energy is wasted before opening"

User: "OK - I see that if the boiler capacity was lower less waste would even be possible - so how big does the heating capacity have to be for the fist school you picked out school to ensure warmth in temperatures as low as X:

Smart-meter: "Easy - that would be around 45 kW, but would require a working optimum start algorithm to bring heating on earlier on really cold days"

Closing note from kWIQly ; The above transactions are possible, but to make it readable we did style the conversation to make it "human-like"- So our client implementations typically support standardized enquiries which are triggered by button clicks etc. rather than a typed interface

A smart-meter, smart enough to listen to

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 12:11:00 +0000

Recently I blogged "What would a smart-ER meter say?" - concluding;

So if we were to:

list smart-meter capabilities against a list of legitimate audiences,
gag them ruthlessly when they are not interesting or not welcome,
apply expertise where needed,
inform those who have a need to know and who have an ability to act,
in a language they understand,
when they want to hear it !

- wouldn't that be nice ? !

and that's my subject for today. However, while I fully intend to comment, perhaps our start point would be the answer to a "smart -er meter" question:

"What do I want from my smart meter ?"

and obviously this depends on who you are - i.e. the audience

Equally it depends on the options - ie "What can a smart meter do ?"

But I am assuming that we all have an idea of these points (even though definitions of smart meters change around the world and amongst different user groups). So for the purpose of this post I will adopt a very broad definition -

Broad Smart-Meter Definition:

"An ability to gather relatively high resolution energy data, process and make results accessible via some means, while it is of relevance to some interested party"

You will notice that this definition includes pretty much any remote Automatic Meter Reading functionality (and does not require an in-property display device !!!)

So back to the post - it's worth considering three aspects of any message, the audience, the intent and how the message is to be "consumed".

(smart-meters need to convey something useful to someone who cares or they are simply destined to be expensive paper-weights)

A very expensive paper weight.
unnecessarily heavy IMHO - but then
I'm interested in the functionality - not the show

Getting these straightened up allows us to think about designing the communication.

So to the audience - perhaps we need to first address "non-core users"

Smart meter advocate ? - Probably not so much !

Various factions in the world of smart-meter paranoia, (some literally in the tin-foil hat brigade), posit outrageous theories about smart meter technologies.

Much as I will fight for their right to be utterly bonkers to my last breathe, I also won't spend too long dwelling on how best to get my message to them.

Classify these as: "long-tail late-adopters" for the technology I believe in.

Politely put - "They can't be allowed to matter !"

The real intent behind Smart-Meters

If we put aside the notion that smart-meters are guidance beacons for aliens, or similar, and go mainstream, then we see three fundamental benefits that are derivable from a data history of energy consumption, and these are sufficient to define our audiences.

1) Accounting for value transfer

Whether a meter reports a fiscal transaction or not, energy has moved. If the energy is of value to the supplier, or to the recipient (not always the case) then we can think of this as an accounting transaction. A financial credit and an equal and opposite debit.

This leads us to use cases that include:
- bill verification (I've said this before, but how many industries can you think of where you have to routinely pay to check billing ? !!!)
- tariff analysis (in competitive markets, standardize data formats would allow utilities to bid competitively and automatically for supply contracts through a clearing market - surely this would be more efficient than giving clients the buying analysis responsibility)
- purchasing support (typically larger users)
- cost attribution (particularly sub-metering)
- financial planning (generally this is very naive)

These "intents" can be associated with "audiences" in accounting and purchasing functions. Data can be historic and patterns of interest are relatively trivial (base load, peak use and so on), and are often determined by the market conditions offered by utility suppliers and buying clubs.

Although higher resolution meter-readings are changing demand pricing which makes for more efficient markets and provides incentives for demand control, there is little new here - people have always had to pay for products they consume.

2) Energy Efficiency & Improving Effectiveness

This is where the smart-meter needs to become smart !
This will be the specific subject of my next post and is the greatest core-value of Smart-metering and AMR in my view (do signup on the RSS feed if you want to catch it when it comes).

Just as a smart meter needs to be timely, concise and on point - I will try to do the same :)

3) Enabling Peer Co-operation Between Users

This is where controls need to become smart and it closes the smart-meter feedback loop!

There is huge scope to do this using within single buildings or sites (eg scheduling loads so the aggregate is spread to avoid expensive low efficiency demand peaks) or in the case of boilers ensuring loads synchronise so that a firing boiler works hard and serves most purpose.

To do this involves exposing not only demand signals (I need heat / I don't need heat) but also forecast loads (From an AHU perhaps - "I am OK for heat because can recirculate until outside temperature drops below X") . This level of sophistication implies a market for heat (or chilling) in a building - and since heat and chill are supplied in various quantity to various functions at various cost - a market solution is needed (both within the single site and at a smart grid level)

Related articles

What would a smart - ER - meter say ?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 10:37:00 +0000

We can think of smart-meters as idiotic Twitter users who send out status updates whenever they get on a bus, arrive at school etc,
i.e. all the time and to anyone who will listen

Tweet : Sat, 14th March 2014 12:30 @gas_meter consumed 20.4 kWh
Tweet : Sat, 14th March 2014 13:00 @gas_meter consumed 18.4 kWh
Tweet : Sat, 14th March 2014 13:30 @gas_meter consumed 44.6 kWh
Tweet : Sat, 14th March 2014 14:00 @gas_meter consumed 20.9 kWh

and so on for ever and ever - ad nauseam,

- Honestly it's not that smart and it looks more like data than information

So data that updates in real time - "How cool is that" ?

Have you ever tried watching a clock ? (<--------------Hint: sarcasm)

- to be fair it might be marginally more interesting than watching paint dry (for a few minutes), but it is is hardly more informative.

Lets remember that hoping a smart meter will save you energy by observing its very existence is like thinking you will lose weight if you stand on a pair of bathroom scales for long enough !

"but won't make you lose weight !"

So maybe smart meters should even call us to gain our attention at certain times,

More of what you expect is less of what informs

- the maelstrom cacophony would overwhelm us in delivering;

WHAT MOST SMART-METER USERS EXPERIENCE !

"An irritating, continual source of noise"

Now imagine if they had lots of smart meters to listen to !

Spam is to a love letter as data is to information #smartmeter http://t.co/ywcNJja5AH pic.twitter.com/qo7ARYGsqA
— James Ferguson (@kWIQly) March 10, 2014

So,
while the answer remains in our power to define - and while we can simply ~~strikeout~~ all but the most foolish of objections:

Very Silly - Objections !

Perhaps what we should first be asking is:

"If we let a smart meter talk - how much should it say ? - when to speak, and when to be silent, what to say, why, how often and to whom ?"

The answers should obviously depend on who is listening, (and that they have a right to) on how much time they have and most importantly why they might care and whether they can do anything useful in response anyway !

"Otherwise it will be ignored."

Simply put, if a smart-meter is set up to be ignored it may as well sit in the "Dunce's Corner" right next to the Climate Change Denial Theorist...

The Climate Change Denying Dunce

So if we were to:

list smart meter capabilities against a list of legitimate audiences,
gag them ruthlessly when they are not interesting or not welcome,
apply expertise where needed,
inform those who have a need to know and who have an ability to act,
in a language they understand
when they want to hear it !

- then just perhaps,

we would start to find sense from the "sea of data" that is supposedly there to help but that threatens to overwhelm us.

and wouldn't that be nice !

Update : Follow up post - A smart meter smart enough to listen

Smart-meter enabled innovation non-domestic - Carbon Trust

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 12:51:00 +0000

The Carbon Trust recently contacted us (and a number of other key companies) with the following

"DECC has asked the Carbon Trust to understand, and report on, what innovations in technology, products and services we can expect to 2020 based on the roll out of smart meters for non-domestic customers.
DECC recommended speaking to you. We intend to interview technology developers, energy service providers, utilities and other stakeholders to understand their (not commercially sensitive) views and then hold a workshop with all stakeholders to problem-solve the question."

So after about a millisecond feeling slightly complimented we agreed to interview and attend the workshop last Friday. Why? - Well to be honest there were three reasons, two good, one questionable - so let me get the questionable one out the way, and then I will go on to the more interesting things ...

Note shift arrow third button down on left

The Carbon Trust has a remarkable coffee machine with a shift key - Really - I kid you not - it modifies your selection and presumably reduces the number of buttons required. This saving comes at the cost of massive user confusion and huge amounts of wasted coffee / energy / carbon - ( to be fair the coffee was pretty good, but an escape or or cntrl-alt-del combination would have been more constructive)
Networking with UK government (DECC), the official regulator (ofgem) and The Carbon Trust and the bre can only be a good thing, especially when it comes to input on legislation and statutory instruments (Disclosure: Our UK subsidiary has worked with BRE and ofgem on CERT compliance on a commercial basis in the past)
Networking with other attendees, This included representation from energy brokers, energy buying clubs, data consolidators, national utilities, and a small number of specialised consultants in the sustainable / smart field

So I thought, it might be useful to knock together these informal notes.

There will be a formal feedback to the UK government, and the meeting was held under Chatham house rule so I will not name the commercial attendees (other attendees are a matter of public record).

I do feel a few significant companies were notable by their absence (hint: buck your ideas up - you know who you are).

The agenda was deliberately loose (more brainstorming than directed) and as often happens several themes kept on re-emerging. So this is a personal, rough (and certainly not exhaustive) recollection of various issues that stuck in my mind - I hope its useful and I would love to hear any views in the comments - perhaps I missed some key things while dwelling on the shift key! :

The title of the workshop was:

Smart-meter enabled innovation for non-domestic customers
This immediately lead into a discussion of scope:

Most non-domestic customers need AMR (automatic meter reading) rather than smart meters (a local display device for readings). Yes, this comes up again and again, and saying "smart" does not make you smart (except in the stinging burning embarrassment sense).

The trouble is with a smart meter, thatwith despite nonsense to the contrary, seeing a consumption dial no more helps you save energy than standing on bathroom scales helps you lose weight.

So the value comes from action engendered by information, not by the existence of a soon ignored omnipresent (and very boring display) of energy data. In discussions with Steven Fawkes (whose blogs Only Eleven Percent is worth a read) earlier in the week I remember discussing "Mean Time to Kitchen Draw" - a fun metric that measure the Billions wasted worldwide on installing things that people soon learn to ignore.

It was agreed that the workshop should distinguish bottom-up, from top-down. The former is the application of household and domestic considerations to the small business market, where the latter is the application of large skill based diagnosis techniques (which apply to some much larger buildings) to the volume market. The vast gap of an un-served market between the two went unquestioned. (Hence, I suppose, the workshop).

The other aspect of scope was regarding purpose - is the purpose of high resolution metering:

To allow purchase of cheaper energy in the market

To enable energy savings

It is worth noting that a more efficient energy market reduces carbon burden, reduces energy security issues (which cause wars - a huge waste of energy), and that energy poverty is very real and meaningful for numerous families and small businesses (not just in the UK.

However, my vote would be for a focus on reduction in demand (perhaps because I have spent most of my career witnessing and diagnosing the ridiculous waste prevalent in society (energy spend that does not even deliver value).

This second priority lead on very nicely to the first agenda point about:

Competition and Switching

Most people will not even bother to switch energy supplier until a threshold of around £75 per annum potential cash benefit is exceeded. This suggests to me that:
switching requires automation (vastly reduced friction)
market is already relatively efficient (far greater savings can be had from efficiency improvements)
the issues of perpetuating data histories in common formats over a supplier transition are very relevant (this effects both buying and analysis)
There was huge skepticism from the group that the major players can ever be forced to align to common data-interchange formats (both for meter data and account meta-data)

The smaller embedded smart meters store a history (too short for ideal analysis)
AMR services don't make it easy to improve market efficiency - there is major disincentive to ease switching in the market. (I think there is scope for legislation here, but it had better be well considered and not the US green button initiative style half-cocked exercise although this is none-the-less better than nothing !)

Engagement and Energy Efficiency

Whether it is a counsel of despair or not - people don't care enough about energy efficiency, to take personal action. This was unanimously agreed. I would express the problem like this :

Like it or not energy is absurdly cheap - 100 years ago to harness 100 horses and work them for an hour required the riches reserved for royalty - hay needed to be gathered, livery made, and the capital asset cost far exceeded the cost of a family compact car. Now everyone can do this with a couple of litres of fuel, so we are collectively enabled to poison our planet and climate - and hey nobody really cares !

After thisour discussion wove backwards and forwards around many themes but gradually moved on to:

"Cheap energy club" type services

The key issues here were automation, buyer friction and engagement, and the need to move from buying (which in a commodity market is and should be a race to the bottom with ever declining margins), which is a necessity for an efficient market to overcome oligopoly forces (nobody actually used the word cartel ! )
Other agenda points covered were:

Visualisation and “remote control" & Optimisation were the overwhelming consensus was (correctly) that:

visualising an energy spend is very far from saving energy and not sufficient to either inform or motivate action
remote control is trivial - there is space for "apps" and connectivity and they will happen, but the business models in this field are extremely naive (the motive to save energy is a pre-requisite to capital investment, and there are better ways of saving energy first) - the problem is determining the action to take
nobody came up with a definition of optimisation in this context (it was perhaps aspirational from the briefing - but bottom up optimisations for households are very different from SME in terms of occupancy, fabric, plant, use cases etc - so we moved on)

A brief and pleasant buffet sandwich lunch was provided and we moved on to

Innovation that “stretches down” from Industry and commerce

Three issues were discussed that (apart from understanding that analysis has a role) are well outside my expert domain - (so I wont comment) - these were

Time-of-use and complex tariffs,

Brokers/Third Party Intermediaries,

Load aggregation & virtual power plants

We then moved on to the following areas which are all very closely related, and where I suppose my personal input was of some value. Grouping these together the following key points were made and I believe largely agreed (but I am so sure of my ground in this area that I may not have heard objections ! ;)
Demand Management

Managing is simple. but there are very complex pre-requisites. Energy relates to activity, and activities are

either, waste or not
Conducted (if at all) either effectively, using best resources, or not

Sub-metering & device disaggregation

These are two areas where data is either gathered directly or imputed. The huge potential waste of metering more than can be managed is one major issue - The internet of things is as yet young. The other is whether loads can be identified through pattern recognition (bear in mind that a smart phone with a gyroscope and accelerometer can tell from your gait, your height, your weight and your health)

Remote building performance diagnostics

No surprises here - According to a new Navigant report nicely summarised here 800M will be installed by 2020 and "Between 2012 and 2020 Europe shows the fastest electric smart meter penetration, growing from 15% to 85%."

It is clear that the entire purpose of this vast new industry boils down to one critical question - "What is it for?

Any reader of this blog will have an idea that is is NOT to draw pictures that no-one can understand or act on but that:

It makes automated quantification of waste possible
It allows cause of waste to be diagnosed
Pattern recognition allows this to be done at scale
Diagnosis is a pre-cursor to treatment

In turn, treatment may be :

Behavioural advice (pertinent, actionable, on-time)
Control parameter change (typically actionable remotely)
Control algorithm change (increasingly modifiable without site visits)
Hardware maintenance (it is too costly to send the wrong people to do the wrong job)
Plant refurbishment (where better decisions can be informed by knowledge of demand histories)

Beyond the current capabilities of pattern recognition - In which case the appropriate expertise should be sent to site:

My conclusions

Overall "Smart-meter enabled innovation for non-domestic customers" is important:

The value is simple, if we can understand and act on energy-efficiency problems at scale for low costs, and if we can regulate demand to service our needs effectively we can live in a semblance of the current luxury we have come to expect - If we do not we cannot !

Please do leave comments below - I will respond and try to incorporate those with merit in future work.

Update : bre have requested that I link to their energy consulting site

kWIQly's refurbished website for energy management

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 18:53:00 +0000

Hi erstwhile reader,

It went rather quite recently in the land of kWIQly as we did two things:

We have been participating in a UK Gov. workshop on the future of smart metering for business and industry (link to commentary when I get round to writing it)

Also we were in the build up to our release of our pretty and concise new website which looks a lot like this...

Take a Peak

We don't profess to be great at websites, because we are too busy with our focus on delivering value for existing clients, but I think it does do a few things well:

It loads much, much faster - try it !
It makes a no risk offer to help you find out how much energy you can save
It addresses some common concerns with clarity
It explains in very simple terms what we can do

And it invites a clear call to action - to get in contact at the bottom of the page

However I confess I liked the elegant pictures of some of the historical buildings where we have worked - but then "out with the old - in with the new" so, since I find myself over-ruled I will just gratuitously add some buildings below - Hope you like them.

Click for a bigger view - and naturally do remember we can add value for a chain of coffee shops just as well as we have in world famous buildings - so don't feel excluded)

The White Tower (Tower of London)

One Churchill Place - Global HQ Barclay's

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Strasbourg)

BP Headquarters Sunbury

HSBC Hong Kong

Pfizer Sandwich (now closed)

Guildhall London

Maximizing ESCO or EPC performance

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 12:16:00 +0000

If getting the maximum from an Energy Services Company during the bidding stage is an art form. It is an art form that is as easy as "Paint by Numbers" !

The bottom line (or as they say now TL;DR version) is that the more you help the process of pricing the bid, the more you benefit. This is best done by easy work, that is well-organised and thought through clearly.

Firstly to the cynics - who ask : "How can helping bidders price their bid lead to benefits - surely I want to drive their price down ?"

This is simply wrong - though the selection process is a competition that you run, the result must be a collaboration.

So, if you accept that anyone pricing a performance contract has to price something they do not completely understand (because they will not win all tenders they bid for - and the costs of preparing bids is not zero), it is a small step to the reasonable assumption, that they will include a risk premium in their pricing. You want to minimize any pricing premium.

English: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (illustration of the Appleton edition). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"All for one - and one for all"
is a summary of a good bidding process

One of their biggest cost variables is risk premium - therefore if you can reduce risk not for one, but for all (if it sounds like The Three Musketeers my apologies I have been a fan since I read Dumas under the bed-covers as a kid), all can offer their services at lower prices. In effect by informing them you assist competitiveness (amongst themselves to collaborate with you).

The same applies to any known problems - anything that is (or may be) an investment opportunity constitutes potentially reduced risk - The enhanced potential up-side makes the bidder more attracted to winning the bid - so they price more keenly.

Secondly, "Who do you want to win?"

Given a level playing field (and I hope we are all in that business) - you want to "let the best 'man' win" and she may be far better than he is - (in engineering women face an uphill struggle - so the better survive).

This requires you run a fair game - each should have access to the same information, and the better it is constructed, the more accessible, and the easier to process, the better are your chances of securing good value.

Thirdly, "Is money the best judge of value ?"

Yes and No - Obviously if you have briefed all contenders equally and if they have similar capabilities, since the prize is fixed (working with your properties) - then if the best price is the best value - it should be no surprise (it is the basis of capitalism). But that is a whole bunch of "if"s...

The real world...

In the real world, competences and motivations and resources all vary. The easiest way to test these (the only way) is during the bidding process.

So, given your knowledge you need to evaluate their proposals.

It stands to reason that the better your knowledge, the better your evaluation - and this is the biggest thing you can influence !

If they price low - is it desperation to win business (unattractive), or is it a consequence of a well-resourced "bidding machine" (attractive) ?

To assess this you need to evaluate HOW they will make money and if it their plans are realistic.

Since we at kWIQly help to build these "bidding machines" (that is we help in analysis for EPC bid preparation), a simple check-list is the culmination of this blog post.

Checklist

These are a few of the things you want to have in place (and want to share):

Good energy data, at a minimum half-hourly automated reading of main meters (Gas, Electricity Water etc) for as long a history as possible is the best resource available - this can be interpreted. (Its what we do)
An idea of plant conditions (tidying your asset register is a huge bonus)
An idea of perceived comfort / discomfort (keep a log book for each property) - this will help you rule out silly proposals and value better ones.
Simple meta-data - meter numbers, floor areas, meals served, rooms booked etc
Access to sites (keys to locked plant rooms !!!) , site contact data, good directions.
Critically - Ask yourself - "WWID" - What would I do? - If you have the best knoweldge of the properties you run (you should) - you opinion (even if not expert) about priorities, risks, limitations, etc, etc is invaluable.

Conclusion

If you have the courage to be open and honest, and you are prepared to work to get these things together - then best value is a few steps away.

Competence, commitment and organisation all reduce perceived (and actual) risk for the organisations bidding so prices are better - and the results should be too !

If you want help in the small part of this whole that we deliver - do get in contact, or feel free to ask your ESCOs to give us a call ! We want to help them to help you (because that's how we add value).

Can FM nail the market with Virtual Energy Surveys?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 13:56:00 +0000

If you run a building (or many buildings), you intuitively know that "eyeball" plant inspection and the study of data as symptoms from a process both have an important role in maintaining services.

It is no different to the idea that a doctor needs to see his patient, but may find looking at a chart of food-intake or white-blood-cell counts or whatever informative.

So any "dilemma" between Virtual Energy Surveys and "Boots on the ground" surveys is a false dilemma. Both have value, both have shortfalls, and in fact they complement one another very well.

So where does this leave the FM?

Very often facility managers provide an on-site presence (sometimes many staff with varying skills and levels of specialisation). They also very often have "central" reporting and contract support functions. This infrastructure implies that their business models are ideally suited to the coming wave of "Virtual Energy Services".

I'll turn back to that thought in a minute but first let's ask what is "virtual" about a "virtual energy service"? - after a few seconds thought it becomes apparent that it is a silly misnomer. The doctor reading a chart is not "virtually" considering your high temperature, he or she is merely considering the data in a format of a chart, rather than looking directly at a thermometer. The "virtual" advantage is that the data represents a history, rather than an instantaneous glimpse.

So a "virtual energy survey" can be conducted anywhere. If being remote from the source of data is advantageous for a particular business model then great - or if the expertise is on-site - better yet!

By contrast inspection generally needs to be conducted in-situ - yes cameras and so on can be an expensive second best (but if you are surveying in a harsh environment may be a necessity).

So, turning back to the FM if we assume, localised staffing for some routine functions, and analytic support from the centre for diagnosis and interpretation is a general model, we find it matches exactly to the ideal business model for Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) and Energy Services (or Savings) Companies (ESCO's).

There is however something more interesting. Many very large FM have own in-house IT departments, (who are more than capable of putting some data into a chart). However, very few have the domain specific capabilities of pattern-recognition and diagnosis of for example HVAC plant activity.

Pattern Recgnition

A - Optimum Start Failure

B - Excessive Boiler Boost

C - Low Load dry-cycling

D - No Optimum Off

The mid-size FM Advantage

This leads to a natural marketplace for the medium and smaller specialist FM. The ones that "get" energy savings. If a product were available that surpassed the capabilities of the big FM solution, but required more "added-value" in the implementation of improvements, there would be the opening of a new and "disruptive" business model.

We are seeing some signs of this. Our natural fit with EPC's and ESCO's continues, but often there is a need to co-ordinate remote diagnosis with "boot on the ground" implementation teams. The more enlightened and agile FM companies (that typically do not have in-house diagnostic capabilities) are seeing the scope for natural partnerships.

Market changes in Facility Management

So where two decades ago we saw consolidation of big FM cleaning and security services within international partnerships to support multi-nationals, now we are seeing interest from more specialised controls, and plant maintenance services in forming alliances with FM diagnostic support functions.

It will be interesting to see if the marketplace sees a flurry of acquisitions, or whether more informal complementary partnerships will emerge - one often leads to another!

For our part, in so far as kWIQly capabilities enable these broader, competitive business models, we are delighted to play our part.

Swiss Army Knife, wrong tool for some jobs!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 24 Nov 2013 13:04:00 +0000

Wenger Swiss Army Knife
http://www.wenger.ch/swiss-army-knives

One-Size fits all ! - I am sure you have heard it even when it's quite ridiculous and misplaced. Some jobs simply need a custom solution.

Allow me to illustrate...

The most obvious argument is the Swiss Army Knife. (Disclosure: I am a fan) - If you are travelling light a universal tool may be a good compromise.

But let's not forget that word - compromise. Compromise means this toolset is not optimal for solving all problems, all of the time.

This doesn't mean, it isn't useful to keep one handy, they are great - I have a Wenger, now owned by Victorianox - "The orginal" was acquired "The genuine" or was it the other way around who cares ?, but funny that the Swiss even reached diplomatic agreement between competing knife companies !

So what is the compromise for an energy manager...

Ahhh more sockets than you could ever need !

If you look into the tool-bag of an electrician or a plumber you see they have lots of tools. Some tools are ideally suited to a job, and knowing the right-tool for a job and how to use it can be very important for performance.

So while the adjustable wrench - is fine in an emergency - it can be pretty useful to have the full socket-set available if you want to run a mechanics shop.

The obvious difference is that specialists carry more comprehensive tool-sets, where generalists need to be able to handle more diverse and generic problems (but sometimes need the help of a specialist).

Also notable is that well-equipped and trained specialists are more expensive, so appoint the wrong one and you are likely wasting money.

Let's pretend for a moment we are energy managers, with responsibility for a chain of fifty leisure centres. To help get into our role let us suppose it's a Monday morning.

Vcitorianox Swiss Army Knife
http://www.victorinox.com

We may not yet know it, but five things (we'll keep this ridiculously simple) need looking at.

Energy targets need setting for all fifty sites
On some sites manually controlled plant (a hot-griddle perhaps) is being left on overnight.
A major damper that controls air-recirculation has an actuator arm that snapped.
A compensation curve has been set up with lousy set-points
The boiler capacity on one of the sites is three-times bigger than it needs to be to carry peak load

So being diligent energy managers, perfectly equipped for the task , we sit down with our Swiss Army knives and set about solving each of these problems.

Or maybe not ! - What's wrong with the following "Swiss Army Knife solutions ? :

The Building Control System supplier said this was a BEMS (Building Energy Management System) - so maybe that it fix all of these tasks.
The Maintenance Contractor is responsible for the efficient operation of all plant - So surely she can fix all of these problems while you settle down with a coffee and do the Monday morning crossword.
The design specialist specified perfect plant ideal for the job, and it was installed exactly as specified (OK that's a Whopper !)
Your energy targets assume perfectly trained staff who cannot be improved upon, so 1,2, and 4 must be figments of your imagination.
Your utility company (ies !) installed extensive smart-metering that solves all of your problems (doesn't it ?)
Finally, we said "you may not know it yet", because problems 2 3,4, and 5 must be first identified and diagnosed, before you even know they exist

So put down your pen-knife and let's think about priorities and possibilities!

How would you go about handling this can of worms ? What is the ideal tool-set ?

It strikes me that the first tools we might want to pull out of our tool-sets - are wisdom and experience ! (did I really just write that?) and with that in mind this is how we might go about the task ...

OK so we have fifty sites (probably spread miles apart) so we don't want to send a team of experts to each site or worse experts to sites that don't need experts - too expensive.

So Step One - We need to classify and prioritise.

How do we do this without visiting site ?

We also have different problem types where some are long term, some sudden onset, and some are behavioural which may fix themselves or maybe someone needs a gentle kick up the backside to pay attention.

So lets see how we might identify or handle these different problems one at a time using automatic meter data. And just for kicks we will do it in reverse order.

The boiler capacity on one of the sites is three-times bigger than it needs to be to carry peak load. A chart of time of day vs weather makes this obvious. But you dont need to read the charts - pattern recognition can find that automatically (It's that little red dot at the top we are talking about)

Now having boiler capacities that are ridiculously big, is a bit like getting too drunk as a teenager - we've all done it, but that doesn't make it clever (and some of us never learn :)

Fixing it would take plant purchase, installation, control system recommissioning and so on. But it is a sure fire winner. It would be nice to know which sites have the problem, what paybacks might be expected (or guaranteed - we are talking gilt edge savings here).

BTW - If this makes you wonder why your software can't evaluate this - maybe you need to buy a new tool !

A compensation curve has been set up with lousy set-points

Yes here maximum output occurs at (32 F - we were presenting in the US) that's just about freezing. But wouldn't you want it to be at a maximum under coldest conditions (and then fall ! ) - it won't happen if you use compensator set-points out of the box (time to kick your controls commissioning engineers) Yup - smart meters in conjunction with pattern recognition can audit controls commissioning automatically !

Whoops - accident - we said Energy targets need setting for all fifty sites, we seem to be getting ahead of ourselves - that Green band above is achievable and it adapts automatically when performance improves - so why would you need to manually set targets ?

On some sites manually controlled plant (a hot-griddle perhaps) is being left on overnight.

OK this is a classic fail - it happens - it is transitory - and it is identifiable...

So whether its happening on one site per week or on half of them, the appropriate "admonishment" (read "kicking") could even be automated.

Naturally, It could be polite, have proof copied in a nice report, and it need not take any of the time of the energy manager (is your coffee getting cold - I've nearly finished for today?) and it does not need a consultant to be sent to site !

Also, if the problem is endemic, it would be possible to accurately calculate (from meter data) what would be saved by a functioning automated time-clock.

A major damper that controls air-recirculation has an actuator arm that snapped.

And there we have it - Our "Swiss Army Knife" fails that is to say "I admit that kWIQly could not diagnose that problem so you need to send the right expertise to site".

Certainly, kWIQly could help a bit (doing some Swiss Army Knife Stuff) :

see the problem,
point out that it is sudden onset,
note that it relates to forced ventilation hours
and quantify the impact

But this is where we are limited - we only have the means to interpret the experience of energy use on the site, not the knowledge of how to get a maintenance guy there to sort it out !

Your experience would need to decide who to send and what to look for.

So nope - Swiss Army knives are only great solutions some of the time, but you may appreciate that now and again (or even in the majority of cases - they can save time and money and in the case of kWIQly - expedite energy management)

Does this make any sense to you ?

- Feel free to ask questions in the comments below or Contact us for a discussion

and as ever - thanks for your time (we know it's too valuable to waste) !

James

Deutsche Kälte- und Klimatagung 2013 Hannover

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 16 Nov 2013 18:00:00 +0000

The German Chilling and Air-Conditioning Association have their annual conference this year in Hannover.

Deutscher Kälte- und Klimatechnischer Verein e.V. - DKV

If you happen to be going look out for Andreas Mueller

and Holger Koenig and be sure to say Hi.

They will be presenting on:

"WEB-basierende Echtzeit-Analyse von Energieverbrauchsdaten für

automatisierte Vorhersagen beim Betrieb von Anlagen"

In English that would be:

"web-based real-time analysis of energy consumption data for automated prognosis of the operation of facilities".

In short, they will explain how pattern recognition techniques inspired based on the from the medical diagnostic field are being applied in a facility management context.

The key finding is perhaps that real value can be added by distinguishing complex from routine problems and ensuring action is delegated appropriately. So while it does not pay to have energy experts visit all of say 100 sites, there are some that are worth visiting.

This decision can be made automatically and fast, saving time and energy (and reducing pointless travel costs).

Equally there are going to be problems that can be fixed by relatively unskilled staff - these can be communicated simply and acted upon fast.

When energy managers get tied up "fire-fighting" which can involve vast volumes of repetitive work, they are often more effective if they can be supported with suitable diagnostics and work-flow or delegation technologies, so they free their focus for the real problems where long standing or complex problems need to be addressed.

If this sound like you be sure to get in touch. (and do write in German if that's easier)

Are you S.L.I.P.P.E.R.Y enough ?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 17:31:00 +0000

Are you using SLIPPERY techniques effectively?

Energy Managers are always trying to change behaviour. In the world of business, methods to make new behaviours easy to adopt can be tested against the acronym S.L.I.P.P.E.R.Y.

I believe these same techniques may also help you in trying to promote energy behaviour change.

So I will first introduce the idea in a rapid overview and then explain how you can use this to structure your approaches to encourage energy behaviour change in your work places.

Finally, (if you make it that far, it is a longish post) I will conclude with a simple case study to illustrate how kWIQly (we hope) offer very SLIPPERY support for our clients

What is a SLIPPERY technique?

Simple
Low to no initial cost
Installs easily
Proves value fast
Plays well with others
Easy to use
Return on Investment is obvious
Your customers can’t live without it

Michael Skok who works for North Bridge runs workshops at Harvard Business School Startup Secrets and his brother David from Matrix Partners co-operate to explain this in the business context more thoroughly here

Note from kWIQly - David was helpful when we were beginning to define our business process and we really appreciate the lectures Michael has put together)

However, although these are clearly intended in terms of delivering a product or service I think it is fairly obviously relevant when you are trying to "sell" (or install?) a new idea or behaviour.

What does this mean to the energy manager ?

As you will see, with the early issues the energy manager has a headstart, but remember the story of the hare and tortoise. You need to tick all the slippery boxes, or your efforts will be less effective.

Simple

Do watch this - seventeen minutes well spent !

So here, the energy manager starts with a natural advantage when dealing with non-technical people. People simply "get", energy savings.

Obviously, I am not talking about more technical aspects of building controls here, rather the straightforward ideas of switching things off diligently, setting time-clocks and thermostats appropriately, closing windows and so on.

They get it because they are brought up to at least understand "waste not want not", "save the pennies and the pounds save themselves" and so on.

However, you need to bring this into personal context. If you run a chain of pubs in the UK at the moment for example, energy costs may be the difference between profit and loss, (and more personally) having a job or not ! - there is also the environmental context to consider.

Low to no Initial cost

Again an easy win, in theory. Yes, it requires a small effort (a tiny one), but also an attentiveness just as they are rushing out after work, and during the working day.

Technology and devices, means people are more and more stuck in their seats. So maybe you can "sell" against the friction of doing nothing, by emphasizing that by getting up and switching a light off, or walking up the stairs to save a lift (elevator) from shuttling down to serve them is a triple win. Exercise, a quick break from work, and good for the planet. It's also great for peer approval - being energy conscious is cool.

Installs easily

We come equipped at birth - by the time you can reach a light switch you can turn it off. It may be worth mentioning to staff they can teach this at home with their kids too ! Maybe making a game of it for little rewards (this also re-enforces motivation - see below)

Proves value quickly

See how I avoided the pun there? (kWIQly - Powerful Intelligence fast - sorry for spoon-feeding)

The most simple measures like flipping a light switch make sense instantly - infinite ROI and zero payback

But many non-technical types do not understand that lowering a thermostat overnight can have a benefit (they get all tied up "with how the weather effects saving potential"), and worse many people do not know that fluorescents no payback in microseconds if you switch them off.

Plays well with others

This is not really an issue - you dont leave your colleagues in the dark, and they do not override the boiler-house control systems (hopefully - you can manage the tougher stuff :)

Easy to Use

Just like the "installs easily", your staff are in control of their own bodies, but you also need to be thinking about motivators (energy dashboards - are they simple to the average member of staff), leader-boards, are they fair, transparent, simple.

ROI Obvious

Here management buy-in can make a huge difference. Environmental rewards are soon overlooked. So why not run a series of competitions (best perfromance improvement wins night out on the town - or whatever floats their boats) HA - when I typed that google autocorrect fixed it to "water floats their boats" - well I guess so ! - perhaps a river cruise is the answer!

Your customers can’t live without it

Get your senior management or financial team to show some simple graphics that compare energy costs to the P&L, (their buy-in is crucial and you will be doing yourself a favour too ! and then perhaps conclude with the video I included above (or something similar) that explains how serious global warming is.

Conclusion

Being Slippery is not necessarily hard - but it is something you can plan for - and have more effect. So below and very concisely I will explain how this applies to kWIQly

Example

Heres what we can do with the sea of energy data you may be getting from smart meters, but not have the time to use (or even glance through)

Simple

We extract data from your automatic meter reading (AMR or smart meter) sources, add relevant weather data and interpret problems using pattern recognition.

Google is complex behind the scenes too, but it succeeds because you put a word in and it searches for you. Simple!

What we offer is a bit like that. We know the word "waste" - so we can just get on with the work behind the scenes. We send you notifications of as many top wasting sites as you want to see at a frequency you choose. If we don't add value - you don't pay (this is rather different from the metering companies who have to install expensive infrastructure etc.)

Low to no initial cost

No initial cost, no lock-in, no reason not to try.

Installs easily

There is no install. If your utility or some other service can show you graphs of data, we can pull out the data for you (in the cloud) and get on with the work - We do need a authority and contact details from you - as a one off set up, and things like opening hours, addresses etc we can upload from your data or "scrape it" from your public facing websites.

Proves value fast

As soon as we sign an NDA to protect your security, and you give us a green light, we can get started. It sometimes takes us a few days to set up, but after that. You get to see the fires as soon as they start ! With energy waste savings always relate to response time. The sooner we help you flag a problem, the sooner you know you can address it - and you dont need to read 100's of charts before you know where to start !

Plays well with others

We can accept data from any AMR provider, so you are free to switch utilities, we can build on top of existing providers of visualisation tools (we are effectively finding the ones to look at)

Easy to use

If it is routine (and if you choose) we can handle follow up with template emails so we can send messages to people who need to act (in your name and wording) and with very simple, to understand actions. We can then track that action has been taken, send reminders etc. Alternatively, we can send items for action to you.

Return on Investment is obvious

Since this is a "pay as you go" offering, you only use as much or as little as makes sense to you. This makes it massively more relevant to you than the original data collations service, there you pay for all meters, not the important ones only. We can do this as we are not tethered to the data acquisition technology.

If you want one site per week to focus on out of 1000 - that's fine. But as you find the first pays, you may want more, or more frequently, or for us to search for more compel problems. or handle your standard reporting (degree-day reports etc).

Your customers can’t live without it

This is for you to judge - it remains to be seen...

Our job is to make your routine, time consuming tasks (that clearly pay-back but are sometimes horridly complex) simply go away. To make dealing with priorities delightful.

You probably want more freedom to focus on real structural problems or getting more SLIPPERY with your staff. If so we can help, and help make you look good ! (as if you didn't:)

Clicking is even easier than flipping a light switch, so if you want us to make contact - you know what to do :)

Thanks for reading (and please share if you think this might be interesting to colleagues)

James

Are smart-meters THIS hard to read ?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 14:20:00 +0000

Hi all

I haven't posted for a while as we have been a little busy helping a client out that is suffering from smart meter reading services (or AMR if you are old-school).

I was surprised that the client has no means to qualify the service they are getting - they have too many meters to check each every day, and simple QA is a task that lends itself to automation.

So we knocked this together:

Around 700 meters are supposed to be read
50 have failed (red sending no readings) by the end.
100 (blue) have never been active this year (sending a non-zero value)
Passive meters have sent non-zeroes but now send zeroes (Gas in Summer)
Active (200 green) are sending non-zeroes

Obviously we could run this daily, weekly or monthly depending on what a client needed (and maybe manage tracking problems as a service). We could also break it down into aged meter failure reports, and how many sites (which may have many meters) are complete for analysis purposes.

So getting a little ahead of myself I wondered how many people are in the same boat. We are hoping to fix this for our client, and we believe it might be generally useful to hold service providers to account!

The bottom line to me is - if energy managers need reliable data, and if they can negotiate collectively more powerfully than as single voices, someone has to pull the stats together kWIQly!

So, if at all interested, please fill in these questions below (4 mins. max.), and if you include an email, we will get back to you (absolutely optional). As ever feedback in the comments below is welcome - Plus please any suggestions for related questions in the future.

regards James

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

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