Onsite Energy Managers Make A Difference
We are early in our newest OsEM engagement, as we just kicked off these five facilities, but we are riding a wave of success and momentum. We will soon be wrapping up one of our most significant OsEM projects with 13 buildings. OsEM is a complementary program to many other tools that NYSERDA provides to building owners to decrease energy consumption. Without mechanisms like OsEM and Workforce training to initiate these building assessments and provide chief engineers, building managers, and building owners a level of trust in your capabilities, the market would have fewer NYSERDA FlexTech projects. With fewer FlexTech projects, there will be fewer Con Edison C&I rebate projects, and without those rebates, buildings will not meet their energy goals.
This week is a perfect example of why this matters. We usually count a handful of Demand Response events in a year; this week, we counted almost a whole years worth in a single week. If you watch the news, record heat waves and strains on the electrical grid lead the news (after the war in Ukraine and updates on the coming economic recession).
So these NYSERDA programs are helping us identify some operational changes for some immediate relief to the situation. Just yesterday, we helped a customer with the engineering on optimal fan speed for cooling as a fan at 90% causes the fan heat to increase n3, but the CFM only increases linearly. Optimal cooling is between 70% and 80% speed, and with additional changes to the DP setpoint, we can increase cooling capacity while decreasing energy, which matters on a hot day like today.
Without hesitation, we know that without NYSERDA and Con Edison, we would not be able to help our customers meet NYC local laws from 33, 87, and 97, all on the way to the move towards electrification. These are valuable tools in our tool bag, especially for building owners that have economically had to handle the pandemic, deal with supply chain issues, new local laws and the impending economic recession.
The problems we face today were created decades ago, but how we solve them today should define a set of new expectations to avoid repeating the same mistakes.