EMIS ReportDesign-Prelim 2020sep11 - Flipbook - Page 30
Figure 13 shows mostly cost-effective EMIS
implementations across the 24 organizations
(21 portfolios, 2 high rise office buildings, and 1
manufacturing facility). Three organizations with EIS
installed had negative energy savings, and therefore
were not included in the analysis since the payback
period calculation is not applicable in these cases.
We compared these cost-effectiveness estimates
with published EMIS cost-effectiveness results,
and we found only one study that quantified costeffectiveness. An MBCx program was implemented for
the University of California and
Results show a
California State University systems
two-year simple which supported implementation
payback for
of EIS and MBCx through
incentives provided by California’s
EIS and FDD
investor-owned utilities. This
MBCx program utilized an EIS coupled with EBCx and
resulted in 11 percent site-level energy savings
and a median simple payback time of 2.5 years for
24 buildings representing 3.2 million sq ft (Mills
and Mathew 2009). The MBCx program result is
comparable to the 2-year simple payback found
through the Campaign dataset.
Organizations in the Campaign used their EMIS as
part of an integrated energy management strategy,
informing operational improvements, the need
for retrofits, and retrofit sizing. Determining costeffectiveness of an EMIS (a tool in the MBCx process)
is akin to determining the cost-effectiveness of any
business-specific software—the software is one
of many tools needed to effectively perform the job.
3.4 Cost-effectiveness
Using the cost-effectiveness methodology described
in Section 2, we calculated cost-effectiveness for
EIS and FDD by participant, then report the median,
as shown in Figure 13. The median simple payback
period for both EIS and FDD is two years with a total of
206 million sq ft of floor area analyzed.
While these cost-effectiveness estimates entail
an inherent degree of uncertainty, they are based on
more data than have previously been available from
actual EMIS installations. Moreover, they are well
within the two- to four-year payback requirements
that drive most energy efficiency decision making.
3. SMART ENERGY ANALYTICS CAMPAIGN RESULTS
Some organizations’ annual labor costs are quite
low per square foot, either due to outsourcing to an
MBCx service provider or a lack of engaged use with
their EMIS. Levels of support from the integrators and
vendors in installation and configuration varied widely,
from mostly in-house EMIS installation by operations
staff with a low level of vendor support to full-service
installation with vendor support to analyze findings.
Both the extent of engagement with the EMIS and the
varying level of contracted MBCx support affected the
estimated in-house labor cost.
Overall, the total cost of use and ownership for
EIS was lower than that for FDD. With easier
installation, EIS is often the point of entry for an
owner new to EMIS. FDD implementations have
more data streams and complexity in implementing
diagnostics, therefore higher costs than those
associated with EIS can be expected.
FIGURE 13: Estimated simple payback period by EMIS type
(n = 24, 206 million sq ft)
EIS
FDD
Simple payback period (years)
30
25
20
Median EIS payback: 2 years (n = 7)
Median FDD payback: 2 years (n = 17)
15
10
5
0
Organizations
Berkeley Lab | Proving the Business Case for Building Analytics
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