BUILDING OPTIMIZATION TECHNOLOGIES
Houston based property management reduces energy expenses by 48%, increases property value while improving occupant satisfaction.
Situation
G&W Holdings, LLC (G&W) invest in add value properties where they utilize their management methodology. G&W acquired a 65k SF office building at 800 Wilcrest Dr., Houston, TX 77042 in December 2006; built in 1982, located between the Energy Corridor and the West Chase District.
Challenge
Initial operating expenses (OE) were 519K or $7.96/SF and occupancy was 65%. The biggest expense was energy $198k (38% of OE), air conditioning and heating system were inefficient and costly to maintain, and air conditioning pneumatic control was installed.
Solution
Roof unit was replaced at the end of 2007, the air conditioning pneumatic temperature controls were also upgraded to direct digital controls (DDC) utilizing thermostats for temperature control and electric motors to control air duct dampers. Many technological approaches were reviewed to address electricity consumption from, solar panels, low shifting LED retrofits, natural- gas generation with Micro-turbines, geothermal and wind power; but none proved to be economically viable.
Throughout this progression, data collection, analysis, and interpretation the idea of a cost-effective centralized system with energy data visualization for analysis were conceived.
The Renaissance Energy Suite, (RES) is based on concepts of the Internet of Thing, (loT), it began with sensor prototyping for the temperature, then switches and current measurements combined with data scraping using python language to gather weather data from weather stations, energy, energy consumptions from Smart Meter Texas website and other websites for water and gas consumption; were vital to the methodologies that led to the creation of the RES- dashboard.
The RES was implemented with the goal of achieving savings on energy and water on a granular scale, it's used on a daily basis to seamlessly get data resources displayed in a rich visualization environment to make the best operational decisions for an efficient energy and water usage.
Results
With these changes and EMS implementation, 800 Wilcrest has been able to reduce electricity consumption by 550,000 KWh form 2007 to 2014, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. - 800 Wilcrest - Electricity consumption and Cost ( Not normalized with weather temperature).
Figure 2. - 800 Wilcrest Historical Operating Expenses
Since the building was acquired by G&W there has been a reduction of 22% or about $113K in operating expenses, these savings equate to $1.42 MM increase of value (using an 8% cap rate). Refer to Fig. 2, which illustrates that most of the increase in operating expenses was due to insurance and taxes increases, which are more market driven.
The performance of 800 Wilcrest is currently at 97% of occupancy (12/23/2015), an OE of $6.18/SF, comparing that to the medium average in the Houston metropolitan area of $9.03/SF.
As of July 2015, G&W has become certified by EPA's Energy Star Portfolio Manager Program with a score of 80. Using the RES platform the goal is to benchmark energy consumption in a monthly base.
