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Despite the name, EWUtilityBilling does a lot more than
provide utility bills. More than
cost allocation. EnergyWitness™ is the only system combines
the billing and meter data of typical utility billing systems with
operational (BAS) data.
Other utility billing systems can't tell you why costs are high
without requiring you to add more and more meters—which makes those
systems cost prohibitive and they still can't identify what's going
on in many cases. By connecting your utility bills to all the
operational data, EWUtilityBilling gives you a
direct path from the invoice to the data behind it so that utility
costs and consumption can be managed.
Utility Bills that Help Tenants Manage Energy Costs
Although facilities vary, in this diagram electricity, water, and natural gas are purchased,
and chilled water and steam are generated. EnergyWitness collects all consumption and billing data from the
utility meters, plant operations, and buildings, then can generate consolidated bills and General Ledger reports.
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EWUtilityBilling is designed to
consolidate energy costs for all purchased and on-site generated utilities, and allocate
the costs into a single bill for the tenant (department, cost
center, building). Tenant's bills include the cost, consumption, and rate structure
information, and also trend charts showing a graphical picture of
operations (not just additional data from sub-meters) for the month. This gives tenants a starting point to actually
manage their energy usage and costs.
Billing information is just a starting point. Tenants can see
why their bills change, whether it is fluctuations in consumption or
unit pricing. But what then? The only answer other systems can give
is to throw more meters at the problem and they can provide the
same, inadequate information at a slightly more granular level. Not
so with EWBillingUtility.
Because EWUtilityBilling is an integrated component of
EnergyWitness, and connects all the operational data to the utility
bill,
you can investigate and determine why consumption changes. Tenant
bills are a roll-up of control and monitoring data—not
just meters but your BAS(s) and METAR data too. The data
will show if changes were due to weather, usage patterns, control
changes, faulty equipment, or something else.
Finally, tenants can actually do something with their energy bill
besides moan that it's too high. You can produce tenant bills with
trend charts of air handlers, cooling consumption, operational cost
or whatever metrics are meaningful to your tenants. Charts can show
daily, weekly, or monthly patterns, show the impact of
weather---actionable information so tenants can make changes to
affect their costs. Beyond that, EnergyWitness provides the tools to
perform detailed diagnostics of operations that influence the utility bills. And it's all possible because we
have the data.
Data Drives Everything
Operational data is what enables EWUtilityBilling to perform accurate
cost allocations. It is using all the data, not just utility meters
and bills (although obviously that's part of it). By combining the
billing information with operational data from building automation
systems, advanced metering systems, space planning
systems—everything stored in EWDataWarehouse—we can more
accurately identify costs down to the space level. Departments that have high energy demands will pay for their
impact on utility costs (and know why costs are high and where the
energy is being used), and departments with low energy needs
will stop subsidizing them.
It's not just about allocating costs of purchased
utilities—generated utilities are equally a part of the equation.
EnergyWitness tracks rate structures, both from utility companies
and internally developed rates. It supports rate structures of any
complexity for facility generated utilities, including options such
as time-of-use pricing.
Having a
historical record of billing information is valuable. Having those
records accessible beyond a departmental spreadsheet, and having
access to historical changes in rate structure and operations is
invaluable. And we mean historical---the data will be around for 20
years. so, you can go back as far as you need to and see changes in
consumption, rates (i.e. $/kWh), and other billing determinants
(taxes, fuel charges, etc.). Again, because we tie the bills to
operational data, you can see the impact of changes ranging from
someone lowering a room thermostat to a change in chiller setpoint.
How is all this possible? (Everyone together this time.) Data.
Uses of Cost Allocation
There are a couple important benefits to accurate energy cost
allocation.
EWUtilityBilling is everything you need to convert your facility
power plant from an overhead expense to a profit center. This has much greater implications than
internal budgeting, as many organizations (especially universities)
are struggling to find new ways to fund the maintenance of building
assets. By making your power plant a profit center, you the leverage to
issue bonds using your internal utility operation (bills and rates) as collateral,
funding maintenance and improvements to building/campus assets on a
self-maintaining basis.
For organizations (typically research hospitals and universities)
involved in government funded research there is an opportunity to
recover more of your energy budget through research grants. Because EWUtilityBilling can
accurately identify energy costs for research space (typically heavy
users) you can accurately build that cost into grant proposals and ensure your
organization can maximize available funding opportunities.
Yes, I Need to Connect Billing and Operational Information
If you'd like to see a demonstration of EnergyWitness and hear more
about how to accurately allocate energy costs, consolidate purchased
and generated utility bills, and have access to the operational data
behind the bills, please give us a call at 617-744-1091, or send an
e-mail to info@intdatsys.com.
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