Before investing in the right technology for your building or portfolio, it’s important to understand how energy management systems and building automation systems are used in many buildings to improve operations and minimise energy spend.

One thing we realised in our exchanges with hundreds of energy professionals is that the terms EMS and BMS / BAS are often used interchangeably, when in fact they are actually fundamentally different. To clear up the confusion, we put together this handy infographic.

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Green building certifications are essential in meeting global climate targets, but here’s the issue: certifications like BREEAM and LEED refer to the intended energy performance of a building, in the context of its design and construction stages.

But happens once that building is occupied? The building’s energy performance on paper starts to look very different from the daily reality of its actual use. In fact, according to a RIBA CIBSE database, buildings tend to consume between 1.5 and 2.5 times the amount of energy originally predicted by their designers.

That means even smart or green buildings on paper could be running inefficiently in practice – and costing you money. This discrepancy is called the energy performance gap, and our free guide is all about closing it using the combined powers of building automation technology and real-time energy analytics.

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These days, facility operators and energy managers have a lot on their plates. Keeping up with rapidly evolving building automation technology, constantly changing occupant expectations and best industry practices and standards is getting increasingly difficult. On top of that, there is the ubiquity and security risk of data coming from the ever-expanding Internet of Things, requiring a new set of skills, not to mention the tools to manage building data properly.

So how can energy teams keep up with the chaos?

Read on to discover some tried and tested strategies to bake building performance into your day-to-day tasks as a facility or energy manager.

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There are 6 variables that drive an occupant’s thermal comfort:

• air temperature
• surface temperature
• humidity
• clothing insulation
• activity level (metabolic heat)
• air velocity

The problem? These factors simply don’t tell the full story behind the maintenance involved in optimising temperature in office buildings, commercial buildings, primary schools or university campuses.

Thermal comfort depends on other factors as well, like climate and occupant preferences – for example, occupants in Denmark may be more susceptible to humidity and heat levels than occupants in Portugal.

The biggest challenges for Commissioning Agents and Facility Managers lie in finding a temperature that is satisfactory for the majority of their occupants, all who may have slightly different preferences, and doing so without sending the energy bill through the roof.

Here to tell us the full story behind getting thermal comfort right in buildings is Brenna Buckwalter from Copper Tree Analytics (before BuildPulse).

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Demand response programs are opening up new opportunities for ESCOs to play a significant role in the operation and optimisation of energy grids.

After all, ESCOs have a unique competitive advantage: they can combine their energy management expertise with granular customer insights to help reduce or shift their clients’ energy usage during peak periods in response to time-based tariffs or other incentives.

Demand response also offers a great way for ESCOs to extend energy services beyond efficiency by contributing to grid stability, safety and environmental sustainability while earning additional savings and opening up new revenue streams for their customers.

But does this mean ESCOs will enter into competition with the new market players known as demand response aggregators?

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Does your business need its own energy manager?

Should you rely on internal resources to start your energy management journey?

Or seek external assistance from an ESCO, especially for financing help? (If you don’t even know where to begin looking for money, check this previous post on funding resources for energy efficiency projects).

For a quick overview about what energy managers do, what professional skills to look for and how energy management in general might fit into your business model, no matter what your company does, check out this infographic:

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Of all commercial buildings, restaurants use the highest amount of energy per square metre. In fact, UK Power and the Family Hospitality Group estimate that anywhere between 5 to 15% of a restaurant’s total expenditure can be taken up by energy alone!

Considering that the average profit margin of a full-service restaurant is usually less than 10% of gross revenue – energy consumption suddenly becomes a BIG financial concern.

In keeping with our industry focus series, where we have previously talked about energy management in hotels, supermarkets, and office buildings, this article spotlights how restaurants can work on bringing down their energy costs.

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Energy efficiency and savings for SMEs sounds nice on paper, but can be much more complicated in practice. Only 5 years ago nearly 40% of European SMEs (more than 7.5 million companies) had not implemented any energy saving or efficiency actions whatsoever.

With the European Commission’s Winter Package proposal for a 30% energy efficiency target by 2030, energy audits targeting SMEs could unlock incredible energy savings potential in Europe. Unfortunately, due to their small size, sectoral variation, and low returns per customer, ESCOs have a particularly difficult time reaching the SME market in order to reach these targets. Yet, if SMEs implemented energy efficiency measures to their full potential, they could shave more than 20% off their energy bills. And that is something SMEs in Europe and beyond simply can’t afford NOT to do.

Most importantly, SMEs have very specific needs when it comes to energy efficiency. ESCOs need to do a better job of recognising and addressing these pain points. To help with that, here is a list of the top energy efficiency challenges faced by small and medium-sized enterprises:

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Let’s not beat around the bush: there are some monumental challenges facing commercial and industrial (C&I) sectors regarding energy costs and energy management. These challenges require a specific set of professional skills for the energy managers and teams who will deal with them.

The ability to engage and collaborate with other related stakeholders as vendors, business owners, building owners, real estate firms, government officials, educators and business owners to achieve the required goals of decreasing the overwhelming cost of energy consumption is very important.

In this guest post, experienced energy engineer and Dexma guest blogger Magdy Aly reveals the top 10 energy manager skills that will enable present and future energy professionals to overcome major challenges.

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