Missouri Energy Initiative (MEI) – State of Missouri Implements Talisen’s Energy Sustainability Platform as the system to track and analyze building performance.
by Keith Kraus
Summer 2014
On April 23, 2009,Governor Nixon issued Executive Order 09-18 requiring all state agencies whose building management falls under the direction of the State’s Office of Administration to reduce energy consumption by 2% each year for 10 years. As a critical part of that initiative, Missouri contracted Talisen Technologies, Inc. to implement Talisen’s Enterprise Sustainability Platform (ESP) to track energy usage and analyze building performance. Earlier this year, the State announced it had reduced energy usage by 22% in just four years, six years ahead of Governor Nixon’s ten-year goal.
To support the Governor’s directive, the State enlisted multiple energy service companies (ESCOs) to help reduce energy usage. Talisen served as the state’s master system integrator and technology lead for the project. Talisen’s ESP provides the foundation for tracking and reporting energy usage, as well as monitoring and analyzing building automation system (BAS) data. “By reducing overall energy consumption by over 20 percent since 2009, Talisen is helping Missouri lead the nation in energy efficiency,” said Office of Administration Commissioner Doug Nelson. “This valuable partnership will continue to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower the state’s energy costs, and save taxpayers money.”
Talisen’s ESP is an enterprise level tool that collects, organizes, analyzes and reports information from a variety of building and energy management systems and metering sources. The ability to converge data from various repositories into a single master data warehouse provides a new level of insight and transparency into operations and processes across the business enterprise. Talisen’s ESP operates through a secure access gateway and uses a series of customized “analytics” to reduce operational costs and minimize system analysis time. The ESP collects and synchronizes systems and operational data from designated monitoring points, every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year, to allow the State to analyze building operations and develop energy conservation measures (ECMs).
The ESP’s Utility Bill Management module provides the State the ability to manage utility bill information to operate buildings in an energy efficient manner possible. As part of the Utility Bill Management module, Talisen maintains an energy data warehouse that contains:
- Utility billing information from nearly 1,400 active utility accounts serving 3,200 State-run buildings.
- PDF images of actual electricity, gas, propane, diesel, steam, hot-water, wood-chips, water and sewer), from nearly 100,000 utility bills.
- Information spanning seven major state departments, including: Corrections, Mental Health, Elementary and Secondary Education, Revenue, Public Safety, Social Services, and Office of Administration.
- Electricity consumption declined 2.98% compared to 2012, and 16.17% compared to the 2008 baseline.
- Gas usage increased only 1.15% compared to 2012 despite a significantly colder weather, and decreased an impressive 32.58% compared to the 2008 baseline.
- Total Energy usage (electricity, gas, propane, diesel, steam, hot water, and wood chips) declined 1.18% compared to 2012, and 22.51% compared to the 2008 baseline.
Each calendar quarter, using information from the energy data warehouse, Talisen prepares an Energy Usage Report which reports electricity, gas and other fuels usage. Those reports are reviewed with Office of Administration management and operational staff. At the end of each calendar year, Talisen prepares an annual Energy Usage Report which compares energy usage for that year to the previous year and to the 2008 baseline. The report is then forwarded to the Governor’s office to support compliance with Executive Order 09-18.
For calendar year 2013, Talisen reported:
To put these energy reductions in perspective: an average Missouri household uses 13,344 kWh per year; therefore, the electricity saved in 2013 compared to the 2008 baseline would power nearly 4,400 Missouri households. An average residential hot water heater uses approximately 25 MMBtu per year. The gas saved in 2013 would fuel hot water heaters in more than 24,000 Missouri households. From an environmental perspective, the total combined reduction in emissions is more than 90,000 tons of carbon dioxide not emitted in the State’s air each year!
Reductions in energy usage would not be possible without the effort of the Office of Administration Division of Facilities Design and Construction (FMDC) personnel. FMDC’s Director Cathy Brown and her staff of facilities managers, engineers, and administrators. These professionals use the data provided by Talisen’s ESP to improve facility operations, manage utility accounts, and forecast utility and maintenance budgets. This public-private collaboration enables the state of Missouri to work side-by-side with a commercial partner to provide groundbreaking energy savings that protect state tax dollars. Currently, no other state in the country has deployed a more effective holistic energy efficiency program. The top to bottom commitment, from Governor Nixon to local facility managers, the ESP program has enabled Missouri to lead the nation in improving energy efficiency.
Talisen designs and implements large-scale software solutions to monitor and reduce energy consumption in a variety of industries, including government, defense and commercial. These solutions, coupled with Talisen’s award-winning Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) experience, provide the ability for organizations to manage all aspects of facilities and portfolio management in one global-access portal solution. In addition to the Missouri success, Talisen has been a key partner in the City of Kansas City’s “Green City Makeover”. Recently, Talisen was selected by the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to lead the Empire State’s energy efficiency program. For more information on these projects and a complete overview of the company, please visit www.talisentech.com.
