Most organizations identify as being in the middle of their energy management journey; when it comes to where they stand in terms of using energy data to manage their business, 27% say they are “accessing real-time data to identify anomalies and performance,” according to a new report from Building OS and Smart Energy Decisions Research. Meanwhile, 15% say they are still at the beginning of the journey, putting manual data into a spreadsheet.
Twenty-two percent say they are in the first steps — that is, automating utility bill data into a centralized system. Another 22% say they are well on their way into the journey, submetering data for greater building performance visibility (up from 14% in 2019). Just 13% say they are advanced or “ahead of the crowd,” working on fault detection and diagnostics.
The results suggest that, though energy managers identify their organizations at multiple states of the energy journey, overall “we’re moving forward,” according to the report. Those that claim to be “well on our way” and “ahead of the crowd” showed the largest increases over 2019. In particular, the increase in the number of organizations leveraging submetering to gain better portfolio visibility — from 14% in 2019 to 23% in 2020 — is encouraging, indicating that organizations are beginning to see the value in submetering to unlock deep insights into building optimization and resource reduction.
When it comes to the factors that are most critical to the success of energy programs, centralizing data into an accessible location is the number-one element, at 59%. This was followed by securing utility incentives (58%) and establishing corporate goals to influence EMIS investments (56%).
The report also indicated that resource reduction (including energy, water and waste) is the energy/sustainability goal to which organizations are most committed, at 91%. Other goals include:
• GHG reduction (58%)
• Upgrading building automation or IoT infrastructure (52%)
• Renewable energy targets (49%)
• ESG reporting (41%)
• Carbon neutrality/net zero (36%)