As of 25 May, the City Council of Terrassa, Spain is up and running with a brand new energy management solution.
Installed by DEXMA and gemweb, the new tool will allow the City of Terrassa (population 215,000) to manage all of its energy data in one convenient platform, for the first time ever.
Time to face facts: the term “energy efficiency” simply isn’t sexy.
Energy manager readers of this blog know it better than anyone else: uttering this bland phrase generates skeptical squints, a few eyerolls, or at best, a half-hearted shrug among colleagues and customers alike.
So why is energy efficiency met with such indifference? And what can be done about it, if anything?
Good news: there’s a groundbreaking initiative out there that’s changing the way businesses are talking about energy management, and you can become a part of it! Read on to discover more…
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.
There are 6 variables that drive an occupant’s thermal comfort:
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).
As of 1st April 2017, the energy regulation P272 has come into force in the United Kingdom.
Officially titled the Ofgem Balancing Settlement Code, this regulation has fundamentally changed the way more than 150,000 businesses in the UK are billed for their electricity use. All told, P272 represents a major step in the nationwide smart meter rollout that is set to continue through to 2020.
Read on to find out if and how your business or customers are affected, what it means for your energy bill, and what you need to know to come out ahead.
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?
Landlords and energy managers for commercial buildings in the UK, pay attention: Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) are about to come into force with major consequences for your business. As of April 1st 2016, all residential tenants already have the right to request energy efficiency improvements to their properties. And starting in April 2018, only properties with an energy performance rating of “E” or above will be legally rentable – that goes for commercial buildings too!
Pretty significant changes, right? Yet surprisingly, two thirds of UK landlords are totally unaware of these new energy efficiency rules, even though they carry non-compliance penalties of up to £150,000. To learn more about how these changes will affect the UK commercial property rental sector, read on!
Although many energy professionals are using these terms interchangeably, Demand Response (DR) and Demand-Side Management (DSM) are not the same thing.
However, they can definitely complement one another to help ESCOs deliver more successful, complete and effective energy management services. Advanced flexibility solutions like demand response also offer benefits beyond cost savings that typically come from energy efficiency alone.
Our latest free-to-download guide was created for energy professionals that are looking to incorporate advanced demand-side management applications and demand response into their service offering.
DEXMA is delighted to announce its partnership with the Building Efficiency Accelerator, a public-private collaboration managed by the World Resources Institute as part of the Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) initiative of the United Nations.
The aim of the BEA is to double the rate of energy efficiency improvement in the global building sector by 2030.
Since October 2016, DEXMA’s Research, Development and Innovation Department has been involved in a new R&D+i project called FlexDSM (Flexibility Demand-Side Management), soon to be integrated into DEXMA’s flagship energy management platform, DEXCell Energy Manager.
Through the FlexDSM project, DEXMA aims to use its wealth of experience in advanced energy analytics to boost demand-side management capacity in SMEs. As a tool for DSM enablement, FlexDSM will help small C&I players take their first steps toward demand response: one of the fastest-growing areas of energy innovation.
If you are working for an SME in the UK, I have some good news for you! The Carbon Trust is providing small and medium businesses up to £10,000 to install energy saving technology, including renewables, new energy-saving equipment and behind the meter batteries.
The funding mechanism is called The Green Business Fund, which will offer direct financial support through energy assessments, workshops, procurement support and up to £10k capital (or up to 30% of the purchase cost) per SME towards purchasing equipment to save energy.
