In 2007, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick began the “Leading by Example” program that established energy and greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals for all state government operations.  Since then the program has collaborated with businesses, including the Massachusetts-based EnerNOC, to achieve these goals.  This year, the Association of Energy Engineers gave the Project of the Year Award to the collaboration between EnerNOC and Massachusetts to meter energy consumption and maximize efficiency at state facilities.

Called the Enterprise Energy Management System, the metering program uses data gathering to stream real-time energy usage data to EnerNOC’s EfficiencySMART cloud-based energy intelligence application.  This allows the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) and facility managers within the state to respond quickly or create long-term strategies to improve energy efficiency.

DOER initiated Leading by Example programs in June 2010.  Using funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, it worked with EnerNOC to install approximately 1,300 smart meters at 460 state owned buildings to monitor energy usage.  The meters check usage levels of electricity, natural gas, oil, steam, propane, and hot and chilled water and track trends, create benchmark goals, and report on total energy consumption.  DOER, thanks to this project, estimates energy savings of 5 to 15% over the next five years.

Some state facilities, notably colleges, have already experienced energy savings from using this system.  A facility manager at Framingham State University used the real-time data to notice that one of the on-campus dorms used the same amount of energy during the night as it did during the day despite the sleeping students.  He was able to adjust the building controls to use less energy at night, which could actualize yearly energy savings of $1,700.

Bristol Community College delayed “building start-up” by one hour in the morning, which saves an estimated $2,500 over the course of a year.  Finally, UMass Lowell identified that its ice rink used significantly more energy than it had in the previous year by using EnerNOC’s monitoring system.  The college reported savings of $30,000 last year by changing the building control settings.