Energy management
_{the challenge and the destination}

Commercial buildings have a dark secret; they are among the planet’s worst climate offenders. Heating, cooling and powering data centres, office blocks and manufacturing plants consumes huge amounts of energy and currently accounts for 30% of all energy consumption, and for 26% of energy-related emissions.

Consider, for example a data centre. A single data centre’s electricity usage is equivalent to that of approximately 50,000 households. This means that the combined power consumption of all data centres globally is around 200 terawatt hours (TWh) of energy annually, which is more than many individual countries need.[1] By 2025, global data production is expected to reach 181 zettabytes – much higher than the 15.5 zettabytes recorded ten years before, which means more processing will be needed, increasing data centre demands on electricity even more.

Older buildings contribute significantly to the global environmental impact too. In 2009, one of the world’s most iconic structures, The Empire State Building in New York, underwent a makeover to improve its energy efficiency. Windows were refurbished, insulation was improved, and the building’s HVAC system was upgraded. These changes led to a significant reduction in energy consumption by 38% and annual energy cost savings of $4.4 million. This retrofit has been widely cited as a landmark example of how energy efficiency measures can be implemented in older buildings to achieve substantial energy savings and environmental benefits.

The figures associated with inefficient buildings are only expected to grow given landlords now have a reduced incentive to undertake green refurbishments as a result of post-pandemic uncertainty around the level of future demand for commercial property.

This presents a significant sustainability problem that could jeopardise companies’ reputations; reduce their ability to attract and retain talent; and affect their chances of successfully securing new contracts, particularly in the public sector where environmental credentials have become a fundamental part of selection criteria.

But this sustainability issue also represents a more direct financial problem, because energy costs money. As environmental regulations become more demanding, and as the number of digital technologies deployed in modern facilities proliferates, optimising building energy consumption is not just a choice, but a necessity.

The need for digital…

Uncontrolled and unplanned energy consumption sits at the heart of the business energy challenge.

Ineffective management of the incredibly complex energy environment results in wastage and therefore cost when it comes to buildings and facilities. This is exacerbated when companies use outdated and siloed systems that restrict data-driven decisions and oblige them to respond to issues after they occur rather than preventing them in the first place. They need to take a different approach.

For example, companies often find it hard to improve the energy efficiency of their infrastructure because they don’t know about their existing inefficient processes, and they don’t fully understand the amount of energy that is needed for the day-to-day running of their facilities – often referred to as their ‘energy baseline’. Knowing the consumption patterns and usage trends, helps them make better decisions when it comes to forecasting and planning budgets. It also helps them to calculate how much energy can be saved if they make changes.

The question is how can organisations accurately measure their energy baseline, implement better processes, and work towards becoming energy-efficient?

Digitisation and automation are key elements of any intelligent enterprise-wide solution to address all three. The smart use of technology helps organisations to collect precise data on energy usage and gain valuable insights from equipment data, resulting in significant cuts in operational expenses. This is why digital solutions are so critical to addressing this problem. Digital tools make it simple to monitor, understand, and manage energy production, distribution and consumption related to buildings and facilities. They make optimising energy supply and demand far simpler than it is today. What’s more, the implementation of condition- and prescription-based maintenance based on the energy data digital tools provide can decrease downtime, improve utilisation, and cut maintenance costs.

Thus, the switch to managing the supply and demand of energy for buildings and facilities through digital tools will have a massive impact for businesses. Research tells us that ‘Demand-side optimisation’ (such as digitisation) can reduce emissions by 25%; electrifying processes can reduce emissions by 30%; and decarbonising energy supplies can reduce emissions by 45%. Together these measures, all enabled by smarter digital tools, can have a tangible impact on closing the net-zero gap by 2050.

… and the destination

So what organizations need is a platform for state-of-the-art monitoring and control of the energy of buildings and facilities by harnessing the power of Internet of Things (IOT) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. They need an approach that optimises energy efficiency, and that is scalable both operationally as well as geographically.

Capgemini’s Energy Command Center is designed to meet these needs. It provides precise information about energy consumption and carbon emission via power and energy monitoring and uses smart technology for real time monitoring and control of energy-intensive utility equipment.

It’s the aggregation, collation, and interpretation of data that is key. With the Energy Command Center, this data supports decision-making for resource optimization and decarbonization. Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms facilitate the control of building operations and assets remotely and ensure that expert advice is available at remote locations, thereby reducing downtime.

In addition, our approach complies with sustainability reporting requirements and enables organizations to demonstrate their commitment to environmental responsibility.

In the second and final article in this short series, we’ll take a closer look at the Energy Command Center concept, and at the results that might be expected.

[1]The Staggering Ecological Impacts of Computation and the Cloud, The MIT Press Reader, February 2022