Photo By Collen McGee | Smart water and electric meters, like this one in building 500, help the Fort Riley...... read more read more
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The U.S. Army Public Affairs office released the results of the 2023 Secretary of the Army Energy and Water Management Awards March 26. For the fifth consecutive year, the Fort Riley Directorate of Public Works, Utilities and Energy Branch, earned top-level recognition. The award is given to units who provide measurable results in the way they conserve power and water. This year, the Fort Riley team earned the award for a project that installed 184 advanced smart meters and linked them, and existing meters, into the Enterprise Energy Data Reporting System.
One of the team leads for the project is Hadassa Baker with the Operations and Maintenance Division of the Utilities Branch. Baker explains why and how these advanced meters save money and other resources for the installation and the Army.
“The Fort Riley Enterprise Energy Data Reporting (EEDRS) system reports to the MDMS system, which is an Army-wide Meter Data Management System,” Baker said. “It tracks meter data from advanced meters and produces energy reports that provides us the ability to track utility consumption at the facility level.”
Baker explained the advantage to getting real, measurable data from each meter every 15 minutes, is that, at the Fort Riley level, they can learn the consumption patterns of the facilities on the installation.
“We're able to look at the 15-minute interval meter data for individual buildings and see what the building energy use pattern is,” Baker said. “We’re able to determine if the building thermostats and HVAC controls are programmed with night and weekend setbacks for efficient energy consumption. We can also compare it to a baseline or even other similar facilities to see if the building is consuming more energy than a similar facility, and we're able to look at it and say, “Is there something that we can do to achieve more energy conservation on that particular building?’”
The EEDRS isn’t limited to electricity but there are also gas and water meters that provide Army-wide system data.
“Installing meters and recording energy and water use in individual buildings provides a great resource to the Energy Branch at Fort Riley,” said Michael Kerr, the energy manager for Fort Riley and the branch chief for the Utilities and Energy Branch. “With the recorded energy and water use data, we have multiple tools available to help find and eliminate energy and water waste. One tool we use is a water leak detection algorithm. The algorithm looks at water use each 15-minute interval during a 24-hour period. If each 15-minute period indicates water use, it identifies a suspected water leak. The algorithm runs daily and sends an email if new potential leaks are identified. Once a potential leak is identified, the Energy Branch visits the building and verifies if a leak is present. The Fort Riley Energy team averages finding and repairing one leak per month. This early detection usually limits the waste to hundreds of gallons instead of hundreds of thousands of gallons. The system also looks at electrical and natural gas use each 15-minute period of the day. We can compare energy use during the day and night to see if building temperature setbacks are being used and compare building to building to identify high energy use buildings. The Energy Branch is very proud of Hadassa Baker and Will Younkman from the Network Enterprise Center, for their work on the project after the construction was completed to make the system more robust and keep the meters reporting consistently for more accurate data.”
Metered data also gives the Army and Fort Riley the ability to evaluate that we are meeting our energy efficiency goals. For now, some estimation must still happen as the smart meters are not yet in every installation facility. The latest phase of installation brings Fort Riley closer to the goal.
“Our goal is to meter 60 to 80-percent of the energy use throughout the installation,” Baker said. “So basically, we focused on our larger buildings that use more energy, based on the building size or the function of the building. Dining facilities have more energy use than smaller administrative facilities. We had meters in some of our buildings already from previous metering projects. So, this was in addition to those buildings. This is a major meter installation project. About 5.3 million square feet of building area is metered, which is 45-percent of total installation buildings, excluding housing, with the goal of being able to meter at least 60 percent of our electrical energy use by being selective on which buildings that we're metering.”
Baker explained that the efforts to conserve utilities and energy are the main way the Army has of offseting continually rising costs. Baker estimates utilities and energy to be the second highest cost in the Army next to personnel.
“Our electric and gas utility bills can be over 20 million a year just for our installation,” Baker said.
She explained that costs went down by about 5 million when cost-saving measures and solar panels were installed. However, when gas prices rise, so do overall energy bills and the best way to combat those rising costs is to continue to seek efficiencies. This award recognizes the Utilities and Energy Branch team for finding and implementing those cost-saving measures.
| Date Taken: | 04.16.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 04.16.2024 11:09 |
| Story ID: | 468637 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 86 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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