Chuck Frost, and Erin Fenley of the UCB Energy Office talk about their efforts to drive down electricity use on the Berkeley campus. This program will shift the onus for electricity use on each of the 28 Operating Units on Campus. Mypower.berkeley.edu

Transcript

Speaker 1:        Spectrum's next. 

Speaker 2:        Okay. 

Speaker 3:        [inaudible].

Speaker 1:        Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, [00:00:30 ] a biweekly 30 minute program, bringing you interviews, featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. 

Speaker 4:        Hello and good afternoon. My name is Renee Rao and I'll be hosting today's show. Did you know UC Berkeley has an energy office and an energy incentive program? Our guest on spectrum this week are Chuck Frost, the first ever energy manager of the UC Berkeley campus and Aaron family, the energy office communication specialist. [00:01:00 ] They talked with Brad swift about the programs the energy office has launched to drive down electricity use on the Berkeley campus. Here's the interview, 

Speaker 1:        Chuck Frost and Aaron Fenley. Welcome to spectrum. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you. You work at the University of California Berkeley Energy Office. How did that come into being? 

Speaker 5:        Well, the university hired a consultant to look at ways to save money on the campus. One of the things they came up with was to reestablish the energy [00:01:30 ] office. 

Speaker 1:        Yeah. And that was about three or four years ago when bane consulting came in to check out what areas we could save money, um, on campus. And that was everything from payroll to energy management. So we dove in from there and it's part of operational excellence program. Actually through the energy management initiative we have created the energy office. We have also created an extensive outreach program which has its own goals and energy incentive program, which [00:02:00 ] has financial goals and then an energy policy which provides a framework. 

Speaker 5:        Might there be, while the energy office actually tracks and monitors and assist the campus in reducing energy and we try to improve the building performance also. Is there anything that's really different the way your energy office is doing it that distinguishes you from other places? I think it's the number of dashboards we're using. We've got [00:02:30 ] almost a hundred installed on the smart meters and then also the incentive program or you could put the bill out into the campus. So the 28 operating units, if they beat their baseline or you will give them money. And this year we're giving them about $170,000 back to the campus, but it can go the other way starting next year and they could owe us two so it can go either way. It's a carrot in a stick. But out of the 28 opportunities this year, 20 received [00:03:00 ] money and two what Ellis and our goal is really to have no one, no HOAs and put the money back into the campus. 

Speaker 6:        And how is it that you tie into the dashboard? Would the data, where do you collect the data? How do you tie it in? 

Speaker 5:        Each building has a meter that monitors the incoming power to the building and that goes to an obvious is the name of the system. And then the pulse energy pulls off the obvious server to populate the dashboards [00:03:30 ] and kind of throws the bells and whistles on it. 

Speaker 6:        Now are you able to use the data to reflect on the buildings efficiency its system? 

Speaker 5:        It's actually can be used as a tool to identify when you have problems in the building. It's a, it'll throw up a flag. If you're doing too much energy after it learns you're building, it really knows how you'll drop. However, on a certain day and the weather and things like that, that's the model that is actually forms. It takes a few months to learn the building and actually it really a full seat, you know, a year. [00:04:00 ] And then once it identifies and learns and models who are building, then you can actually have threshold or limits that will flag your attention. If you have drawing too much or not enough, it can go either way. But that's a good indication. It's a lot better to have sub-metering in a building, but it's, it's very powerful just to have, you know, a smart meter in a building. And is there a move afoot to go to this sub-metering? Absolutely unfortunate. It just comes with a price and so it's very expensive. [00:04:30 ] But with the technology changing and wireless and things like that are being used a little bit more and I think it's coming down. So probably doable in the future. If you look at all the utilities on campus, we average between 30 and 35 million. That's for water, steam, gas and electricity. 

Speaker 1:        And the electricity itself is about 17 yeah, 

Speaker 5:        that's what he paid last year. 

Speaker 6:        And so year to year as units start to save, you're able to give what back to them 

Speaker 5:        when the, [00:05:00 ] the main meter at the campus drops down. That that's how we really determine and then we break it down into buildings, how much each of the buildings. But we actually look at the main meter also and then we are showing for the first time in a number of years where we actually did reduce and that an average of 2% creep was what we saw since the 90s 

Speaker 1:        so so we can really avoid that creep by keeping the engineers in buildings. They've been divided into zones to work [00:05:30 ] in specific areas on the campus in order to understand the buildings, know what's going on there, work with the building managers in order to keep them tuned up so that the creep doesn't happen. 

Speaker 6:        And that's the front line? Yes, it's the building engineers and building managers. 

Speaker 1:        Well through the energy office there are stationary engineers, electrical engineers that are working in the zones with building managers in order to make that work happen. 

Speaker 5:        So even though the skilled trades, 

Speaker 1:        our goal goals a little bit different [00:06:00 ] than a traditional stationary engineer example where we're looking at kilowatts and BTUs, we want to help in any way we can and improve the building. But our focus is really energy. So we work with the shops but we have a different spin on it. So this past year a lot of the work that was very significant in reducing energy use was through variable fan drives. Yeah. 

Speaker 5:        Both frequency drive. So anytime you can vary the flow on a large motor, whether it's pumping water pumping here you can [00:06:30 ] actually, once you reduce that substantial savings. So we saw a lot of opportunities and repairing dries, putting in new drives and things like that. 

Speaker 1:        You kind of have more of a consultant role 

Speaker 5:        in a sense. We like to say we're looking and um, some people will call it low hanging fruit. They don't cost a lot of money to invest in, but it could be scheduled changes. You could be heating and cooling at the same time. There's a lot, actually a lot of savings in those two areas and really don't have to spend a lot. You [00:07:00 ] just have to identify what I'm an example in this building we're in right now, it was a while ago, they actually had a painting project, so they wanted the fans to run 24 seven and it was one of the professors at notice will look at the dashboard and how come the energy use went up and it didn't go back down. So by him asking that question, we investigated and we found out that they had put all the fans in hand. There was no schedule to shut down at night so that that was about a $45,000 [00:07:30 ] avoidance would have been allowed to run the rest of the year. So those kinds of things, that's what the dashboard really helps a lot of people a lot of highest looking. So you can see what's going on and start asking the questions, why do I have this little blip of power? Why does it jump up like this? And the energy officer will go out and investigate it and sometimes it's just interviewing people. Sometimes it's walking through mechanical rooms and every building has a story. So you have to kind of dig into it. 

Speaker 7:        [inaudible] mm, 

Speaker 4:        [00:08:00 ] you're all sitting just spectrum on k a Alex Berkley. Our guests today are chuck frost and Aaron finally from the UC Berkeley Energy Office. In the next segment they talk about changing behavior to save energy 

Speaker 1:        and what sort of outreach programs are you operating to try to just drum up support and awareness. We do have a energy management resource center right here in Barrows Hall Room One 92 [00:08:30 ] and people can stop by and pick up posters and flyers and light switch stickers can get information about saving energy, specifically in labs, residence halls and office spaces. You can also come there or email us@mypoweratberkeley.edu and set up a time to have our student team and we have an amazing student team who conduct surveys in offices, labs. We co