The Berkeley REFS ProjectApproach Explanation and Results

March 30, 2016

A collaborative energy efficiency experiment focused on enabling building operators with clear, unambiguous feedback using the principles of decision science.

REFS: Rapid Efficiency Feedback and Support

UCB Campus Energy Office

Buildings Alive Pty. Ltd.

Partners

Enable Building Operations Personnel

The “REFS” (Rapid Efficiency Feedback and Support) Project began with a simple question:

If FMs and building staff are given better information and enabled to experiment, will energy performance improve?

UC Berkeley (UCB) has publically targeted energy efficiency and the ultimate goal of carbon neutrality for the campus as a whole. Everyone on campus knows energy is a priority – the students, the faculty, the staff, and especially those charged with the day-to-day operation of campus buildings. But UCB facility managers (FMs), building managers, and energy managers are constantly challenged to satisfy the needs of university’s building occupants, to operate the increasingly high-tech campus buildings, and to implement smart efficiency strategies.

Providing unambiguous, clear, and dependable information that is suitable for decision making was the project goal, rather than procuring more data that requires time to interpret and analyze, or new dashboards and analytics packages that must be learned.

The project was inspired by the principles of decision science, as applied by Buildings Alive Pty Limited. Buildings Alive is a Sydney-based company that specializes in achieving energy and water savings for big commercial building owners by focusing on enabling the human element of building operations, namely the FMs.

The right information at the right time

The REFS system was deployed by Buildings Alive. Buildings Alive CEO, Craig Roussac, was a visiting Fulbright Scholar at UCB and LBNL in the spring of 2014.

The system is core to Buildings Alive’s work with large commercial building owners, and the program averages 17% energy savings in office buildings and 24% in retail.

Building operators

experiment and learn through

cause and effect

Stakeholders see, demand and appreciate enhanced

performance

Controls, metering and

monitoring tools are better utilised

Operators identify and respond to

opportunities

Performance measured, analysed,

evaluated and communicated

Step 1: Understand each building

Buildings Alive and the Energy Office sourced historical electricity data for each building and campus weather data. This data was used to identify buildings where the patterns of use suggested FM (as opposed to occupant) control. Ultimately 53 buildings were selected for participation. Buildings Alive developed a statistical model for each building that explains energy usage patterns as a function of independent variables (principally weather and academic calendar), daily.

The UCB Campus Energy Office and Buildings Alive jointly developed explanatory and on-boarding material for the UCB Facilities staff and the project commenced in late 2014. At the start, kick-off material customized for each building was provided to the building’s staff person. This material included a co-branded “how your building’s model was developed” document, and Buildings Alive solicited feedback on the appropriateness of the modelling period and any specific considerations that should be taken into account for that building.

Step 2: Focus on what is controllable

The model “learns” the building from the energy performance history.

As operational improvements are made, BA is able to document the impact, normalized for factors outside the operators control.

Step 3: Provide actionable insights, daily

Operators get a clear message: performance was either as expected, or better or worse than expected with visuals that explain the timing.

University Hall has found savings in baseload and full operation

Step 4: Provide engineering support

In implementation at Berkeley, the project required the collaboration of the Campus Energy Office and the Facilities Management team. Buildings Alive developed baselines and reviewed them with FMs to build commitment and confidence in models. Building managers worked in groups to the extent possible, and were guided by the Campus Energy Office staff throughout program. The REFS included a daily diary feature in which FMs could denote measures implemented or activities in buildings that led to energy use increase.

The Campus Energy Office also worked with the Campus Facilities team and individual building operators to provide suggestions on improvements and to utilize Buildings Alive’s systems and support for measurement and verification (M&V) of measures implemented.

Building Performance ResultsVerified savings:

Despite reorganization in the summer of 2015 that shuffled FMs and reduced facilities and energy office staff, energy savings were found.

All buildings started the program in Q4 of 2014, but not on the same dates. The average time of participation in the program was 14 months.

These savings are additional to those accrued previously by existing energy programs. Nearly all of REFS savings result from operational improvements (as opposed to capital projects) attributable to the effort of the facilities staff at UCB, as enabled by better information.

1,700,000 kWh

$185,000

Real World ChallengesThe spring/summer of 2015 was a challenging time for the energy and facilities teams at UC Berkeley. Staff levels decreased and many operators were moved to different buildings. As a result, the portfolio actually used more energy during this time. The good news is that once some stability returned, the operators and the Campus Energy Office were able to continue to accrue even deeper savings that outpaced their previous efforts. As a result, 72% of all savings occurred in the last 6 months.

$ Savings0%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

Last 6 MonthsUp to 6 months ago

Satisfaction Survey ResultsIn a survey of building operators receiving REFS messages:

77% 77% 56%

reviewed REFS messages daily.

found REFS messages helpful.

had identified efficiency

opportunities and tracked the results

using REFS.

Aggregate Performance TrackingBuildings Alive also aggregates the daily variance of all 53 buildings top create a portfolio trend.

How to interpret these results:

This chart shows the aggregate performance of all 53 Berkeley buildings compared to their individual models each day since the beginning of the tracking.

Note that not all buildings began tracking on the same day, but most began tracking at the beginning of September 2014, and these are workdays, not calendar days, so ~20 days equals one month.

How to interpret these results continued:

Green bars (and negative percentages) mean that for that workday (X number of workdays since commencement of service) all the tracked buildings used less energy than their models predicted.

Red bars (and positive percentages) mean the buildings used more energy than the models predicted.

The models make predictions for individual buildings in the actual outdoor conditions seen on campus, so together this variance chart is an excellent indicator of total portfolio performance.

How to interpret these results continued:

It can be seen from the chart that strong performance improvements of around 2% monthly were seen from Sept 2014 to March 2015, right after the commencement of the REFS program.

Performance slipped in the spring of 2015 through August, coinciding with reorganization and staff changes.

Improved results resume in ~Aug 2015, reaching far beyond initial results.

How to interpret these results continued:

Conclusion: Additional EE found

Through REFS, the campus has seen a heightened interest in energy conservation – it has become common for FMs, who are mostly academic departmental staff, to notify their asset and facilities teams when energy use increases are observed in the daily messages.

Often, the solutions to these energy spikes require a collaborative approach, with the FMs becoming the first responder.

Because the FMs have an innate understanding of teaching and learning activities in their respective buildings, the FMs are best positioned to accede the role of a first responder to any energy use aberrations.

FMs have also been encouraged to meet with one another as well as reach out to facilities teams to better understand energy usage of equipment and occupant behavior..

Certainly, this effort proves that low or no-cost energy efficiency opportunities in campus buildings exist, and that given the right tools and information building operators will seize those opportunities. The costs of providing those tools are far outpaced by the continually accruing environmental and economic benefits to the university in terms of avoided energy costs.

Enabling building operators with timely and unambiguous information helps them find additional energy efficiency savings.

Conclusion: Valuable internal culture change

The REFS project clearly demonstrates the benefits of enabling facility managers and of establishing an internal culture that values experimentation and energy expertise in the context of clear energy goals for the campus.

Campus goals exist for all universities, but the REFS feedback could be provided to buildings across the UC and CSU system, assuming suitable data is available.

The experimental culture develops when FMs are empowered and able to see the impact of their work within the REFS feedback.

A project like REFS was made possible by the evolution and adoption of technology (i.e. smart meters and sensors) coupled with increasingly smart algorithms, but distinct in that these tools were deployed through the lens of decision science and organizational management. That focus on the human element is where previous efforts may have missed potential savings.

Traditional approaches (i.e. retrofits or short term monitoring based commissioning) and new approaches (i.e. automated fault diagnostics, “real time” data management) sometimes reduce or inhibit the FM’s control over a facility, or create barriers to their job performance.

The REFS program speaks to the potential of a paradigm shift in how we approach energy management, where FMs have a seat at the table alongside engineers and technology companies.

Further fostering a culture of cooperation and peer-to-peer learning maximizes the benefit.