Energy Management: Energy Management

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Active Demand / Demand response in short ; "buy now to beat the rush"

Hi - Very brief update

I am off to Rome later this week to a briefing by (Nov 2014)

at Enel Head Offices, who describe their mission as follows:

MISSION
Leveraging on the empirical data and lessons learnt in real Active Demand (AD) experiences, the overall objective of the 24 months project is to develop actionable frameworks enabling residential, commercial and industrial consumers to participate in AD.
Furthermore, the benefits of AD for the key stakeholders and the inherent impacts on the electricity systems considering its potential contribution to system stability and efficiency are to be quantified taking different scenarios into account.
This will be achieved through comparing the different AD solutions applied in Europe and enhancing them by the investigation of socio-economic and behavioural factors with direct involvement of real consumers.
On this basis, key success factors of AD and recommendations for the future design of AD programmes will be derived.

Equilibrium price under demand inelastaic and elastic demand (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In short it is about buying when demand is low for later usage - it helps the grid, the utilities, the clients (lower prices) and it helps the planet because it allows more efficient generating resources to be applied.

The notion is all about the micro-economics of the market:

I'm looking forward to conversations with some of the interesting attendees, both guests and from amongst the partner organisations:

So if you happen to be in Rome this week and want to talk about Active Damand / Demand Response and/or how kWIQly can uncover load rescheduling opportunities from energy data (whether attending or not) do drop me a line to james @ kwiqly.com and we will see if we can catch up.

Best James

Breakfast and Bed - Reverse Engineering Triumph

Last week I visited three truly world-class companies who are active in the building services arena.

I can't reveal names but for fun I aggregated some quick statistics:

Combined turnover was 137 $ Billion

This is what One Billion $ looks like !

imagine 137 of those - it could really wear a hole in your pocket

Combined Employed staff exceeds 408,000 , that's more than the population of Nice in France,

And that's a Nice crowd!

or even Tulsa, Oklahoma !

Tulsa - Never been there - but if you're going there's plenty to sing about

So annual turnover per employee is more than 250,000 US

That sum is rather greater than the modest beer tab I ran up in the fantastic B&B where I stayed near Gatwick Airport

http://www.thecornerhouse.co.uk

No your eyes do not deceive:

Yes that is a Lotus Evora parked by the front door !
Click to Enlarge

So, to the boring part of the blog...(c'mon you can handle it)

What does a Lotus Evora, the worlds Greatest Engineering Companies, a Great Bed and Breakfast and Me have in common ?

To answer I will be criticising the B&B (a little), but not before adding; fantastic food (The Whitebait was really spectacular), really friendly staff and a 24hr service to Gatwick and local rail stations and sensible prices.

The title of this post was "Breakfast and Bed - Reverse Engineering Triumph". I will explain this but first let me point out that most (over 90%) of big buildings have exactly the same problem as this small B&B has in some form or another. So to the explanation.

It looked rather like this

As I sat having my Full English Breakfast, I realised that I knew what the heating pipework system must look like (is it just me or does that sort of thing happen to you too ?).

So this is where the reverse engineering comes in...

The normal approaches to energy waste

You see we commonly look at energy consumption, and tell people what they have wrong in their buildings by recognising patterns (usually working with VERY large engineering companies on behalf of their clients), we then explain the comfort and cost implications.

We also often look at what buildings have wrong and back this up with engineering theory, show the energy waste, and explain the comfort implications.

On this occasion I found myself doing the very opposite.

So this is the normal story (many of you reading this will have heard this brief story and seen the accompanying graphs from me before but the interesting part is that the engineering is reversible)

First - We show a graph where heating energy consumption is systematically higher in Spring than Autumn despite similar weather conditions (below is a pub showing 23% waste caused by making clients uncomfortable)

Pale Blue bounds different monthly average consumption (vertical) at the same average monthly temperatures (horizontal)

Then - we explain this in the context of a pub (where in the UK the economic crisis has been forcing may to close).

"As Autumn closes in temperatures fall (pun;) and clients get cold. So landlords turns up thermostats. In spring clients get hot so they open windows and leave doors open - Voila - waste as a response to discomfort. Later an observant client says `hey the doors open but the heating's on' and things return to normal (happens at around 12.5C on graph above)"

We finally conclude - Obviously this is silly ! From personal experience I have seen in in pubs, restaurants, hotels, office blocks, prisons, factories, schools (need I go on). BUT I have never reversed engineered it !

The solution is simple - correct compensation previous post, but this is what happened to me last week and it's rather different...

I arrived on a pretty horrid delayed flight out of Basel, was picked up at the airport, and five minutes later chatted happily as I registered. I was taken to a smallish, but clean room and closed the door behind me. I then stopped breathing !...

It was so hot I ran to the window to open it. I then isolated the radiator in the bedroom and the one in the en-suite bathroom. But still it stayed hot. I went and ate, and (after some beers while tidying a presentation for the next day, I returned to my room) - It was still too hot. so I slept with the window open in March in the UK !

The next morning I showered, went to breakfast and realised that despite TRVs (thermostats on radiators that respond to hot rooms), the entire heating system was overly hot - there was no direct compensation to weather (this is common in Europe with Germany, Scandinavia and Switzerland providing notable exceptions).

So I also knew that there was no bypass loop (to prevent unwanted hot water flowing round the whole hotel and to trigger early shut-down of the boiler) and therefore no valve mechanism to drive it.

Given that sometimes I can't help myself, I mentioned this to the owner over breakfast (delightful chap - nice car) who proudly showed me his new heating system

But who then confirmed that on warm mornings he tells cleaning staff to shut valves on radiators and on cold mornings he tells them the opposite!

The fundamental control system is the discomfort of guests, who regulate the rate of waste to match personal preferences !

There is a very easy fix for this hotel, and I will be returning (it is so good), so in a few weeks I hope to take a photo of the system and will provide a bit of "free advice" which if the owner is happy I will publish here.

A quick primer on direct compensation the idea behind the fix is here - but now (after my reverse engineering breakfast) I know from personal experience that the advice we have been giving is spot on !!!

Finally - What relates great engineering companies, the operator of this B&B, and the full English breakfast to a Lotus Evora ?

"A demand for excellence, coupled with determination to deliver and improve !"

The conversational smart-meter

Automatic meter readings tie consumption to a time-stamp in a data base.

Since logged readings answer - " How much energy was used at time X ? ",

this really cannot be considered smart (even if it does involve a pretty chart).

So what is considered smart ?

Useful services can "wrap around" energy data to begin to appear "smart". So here is a scale of increasing "smartness"

Services may;

provide a stream of interpretation or a display

- but this can easily be listened to or ignored so call this "smart",

slightly better they may;

react conditionally to thresholds

- less likely to be ignored, but not very good without user context
so call this "smarter",

better yet they might allow;

a user to define their context and then answer appropriately to that context
so call this "smartest", This starts to addresses the audience question of my previous post

Note : way beyond "smartest" there is also kWIQly - but that isn't the point of this post!

An example to illustrate might be helpful (the first level is rather obvious but the others may not be):

Illustrations; ~~Fairly dumb~~ smart, smarter, smartest:

1) smart - a stream of data displayed...

Have you ever noticed when a clock stops ticking ?

Humans have highly developed skills to "tune-out" noise, even from their own children.

Is this a stream of fascinating insights ?

or perhaps it is a gripping read ?

We know anything "always on" but not threatening or vital - is soon ignored

(isn't exactly that the cause of much energy waste)

For example - do you have anything held to your fridge with a magnet ?

If so think back to the last time you noticed what it says ?

Easy to ignore ?

"To be effective a smart-meter needs to be more compelling than a screaming kid"

Yes, perhaps that is "a big ask" but it is also a reasonable objective - so let's look again to see if this passes...

This just "screams" energy waste doesn't it !

2) smarter - interactively addressing specific questions

Now imagine a smart-meter where you can set thresholds and above the threshold an alert is sent (to a designated listener !).

There are several SaaS companies that let you do this. However, if your use case is even remotely complex (you use more gas in winter for heating), it needs to be maintained (whether by you or the service) or it becomes worse than useless - You have configured something designed to interrupt - but it interrupts at the wrong time!

There are also some simple ways around this (eg tracking recent mean deviations and volatility) but unless you have a good underlying model (understanding what constitutes a valid alert you will end up with a version of the boy that cried wolf - as in Aesop's fable

English: The illustration by Francis Barlow of the fable "The Boy who Cried Wolf",

called by him DE PASTORIS PUERO ET AGRICOLIS, 1687 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is obviously a way of inspiring great music - but not so good for a smart meter.

By the way - why not do yourself a favour -

watch this video with your children this evening

(bookmark it if you want)

Warning: frightening for the very young

They will love you all the more (your time inspires their growth) - it delivers a simple cool morality message - they will learn of marvellously inspiring classical music that really talks to the story and

you can enjoy the superb animation !

Something for everyone, - as they say in US of A land : "What's not to like ? !"

By the way if you love it - please share it !

As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself...

"- interrupting yourself is not always a good idea from a smart-meter"

So we move on to what we can consider the smartest -

3) Smartest - "a user can define their context and the "smart-meter" can answer questions appropriately to that context"

When looking at smart functionality it is important to isolate different aspects of "smart". For example the interface presented to the user may be elegant, snappy and easy to use, or ugly, slow and a nightmare (I won't show any examples here).

It might be equally be text based, numeric, iconic or graphic, but presentation issues do not determine the "smartness" of the capability. (Though the user experience or "UX" as it is known is unquestionably an extremely aspect of any product or service that aspires to frequent use).

So we do not "care" (for the purpose of this conversation) how information is represented or conveyed, we care about the underlying "intelligence". Ie what work the smart-meter can do that is "smart". This is like saying when we choose a doctor we are more concerned by his or her training and experience than their social standing, looks, golf handicap or bedside manner (even though these may help doctors market themselves).

The most famous determination of the quality of artificial intelligence is the Turing Test from wikipedia

"The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. In the original illustrative example, a human judge engages in natural language conversations with a human and a machine designed to generate performance indistinguishable from that of a human being."

So we might consider the "conversations" that a smart-meter could have with the user, and judge whether these convincing or not. If they are - it is smart.

Note: kWIQly while can deliver one side of this conversation - as a pre-requisite - solutions are built on top. We also do not claim to have invented any intelligence here - merely an artificial simulation in a limited area that is constrained to asking and answering very stylized questions

I want you to imagine yourself as "user" in the following dialogue. This starts to represent what is now possible for the smartest of smart meters. The user represented (that is you) is assumed to be pretty well versed in energy management - it would be possible to repeat this for a much more lay-user ("who only just gets a thermostat")

User: "Please note that the following days are school holidays:"

List of holidays goes here (and is applied to all the meters in the school district)

Smart-Meter(s): "Got it"

User: "During weekends the school is closed, during holidays unless flagged the school is closed, during school-days occupancy is from 08:00 to 16:45"

Smart-Meter(s): "Got it"

User: "Gas use relates to cooking, heating and domestic hot water, comfort heating is required during occupancy and to protect fabric in school holidays under extreme weather conditions, but not at weekends"

Smart-Meter(s): "Got it" -

Note this was all setting context and was like data entry - now it gets interesting

User: "Which school has the most individual days of holiday where consumption is more consistent with school days than holidays?"

Smart-Meter from one school : "Check this out;"

User: "OK - So on days when temperatures are in the range seen last week -

at what time of day is most energy wasted (please band the answer by level of waste) across all schools ?"

Smart-Meters ; "You mean something like this;"

"On the most wasteful days most energy is wasted before opening"

User: "OK - I see that if the boiler capacity was lower less waste would even be possible - so how big does the heating capacity have to be for the fist school you picked out school to ensure warmth in temperatures as low as X:

Smart-meter: "Easy - that would be around 45 kW, but would require a working optimum start algorithm to bring heating on earlier on really cold days"

Closing note from kWIQly ; The above transactions are possible, but to make it readable we did style the conversation to make it "human-like"- So our client implementations typically support standardized enquiries which are triggered by button clicks etc. rather than a typed interface

What would a smart - ER - meter say ?

We can think of smart-meters as idiotic Twitter users who send out status updates whenever they get on a bus, arrive at school etc,
i.e. all the time and to anyone who will listen

Tweet : Sat, 14th March 2014 12:30 @gas_meter consumed 20.4 kWh
Tweet : Sat, 14th March 2014 13:00 @gas_meter consumed 18.4 kWh
Tweet : Sat, 14th March 2014 13:30 @gas_meter consumed 44.6 kWh
Tweet : Sat, 14th March 2014 14:00 @gas_meter consumed 20.9 kWh

and so on for ever and ever - ad nauseam,

- Honestly it's not that smart and it looks more like data than information

So data that updates in real time - "How cool is that" ?

Have you ever tried watching a clock ? (<--------------Hint: sarcasm)

- to be fair it might be marginally more interesting than watching paint dry (for a few minutes), but it is is hardly more informative.

Lets remember that hoping a smart meter will save you energy by observing its very existence is like thinking you will lose weight if you stand on a pair of bathroom scales for long enough !

"but won't make you lose weight !"

So maybe smart meters should even call us to gain our attention at certain times,

More of what you expect is less of what informs

- the maelstrom cacophony would overwhelm us in delivering;

WHAT MOST SMART-METER USERS EXPERIENCE !

"An irritating, continual source of noise"

Now imagine if they had lots of smart meters to listen to !

Spam is to a love letter as data is to information #smartmeter http://t.co/ywcNJja5AH pic.twitter.com/qo7ARYGsqA
— James Ferguson (@kWIQly) March 10, 2014

So,
while the answer remains in our power to define - and while we can simply ~~strikeout~~ all but the most foolish of objections:

Very Silly - Objections !

Perhaps what we should first be asking is:

"If we let a smart meter talk - how much should it say ? - when to speak, and when to be silent, what to say, why, how often and to whom ?"

The answers should obviously depend on who is listening, (and that they have a right to) on how much time they have and most importantly why they might care and whether they can do anything useful in response anyway !

"Otherwise it will be ignored."

Simply put, if a smart-meter is set up to be ignored it may as well sit in the "Dunce's Corner" right next to the Climate Change Denial Theorist...

The Climate Change Denying Dunce

So if we were to:

list smart meter capabilities against a list of legitimate audiences,
gag them ruthlessly when they are not interesting or not welcome,
apply expertise where needed,
inform those who have a need to know and who have an ability to act,
in a language they understand
when they want to hear it !

- then just perhaps,

we would start to find sense from the "sea of data" that is supposedly there to help but that threatens to overwhelm us.

and wouldn't that be nice !

Update : Follow up post - A smart meter smart enough to listen

Are you S.L.I.P.P.E.R.Y enough ?

Are you using SLIPPERY techniques effectively?

Energy Managers are always trying to change behaviour. In the world of business, methods to make new behaviours easy to adopt can be tested against the acronym S.L.I.P.P.E.R.Y.

I believe these same techniques may also help you in trying to promote energy behaviour change.

So I will first introduce the idea in a rapid overview and then explain how you can use this to structure your approaches to encourage energy behaviour change in your work places.

Finally, (if you make it that far, it is a longish post) I will conclude with a simple case study to illustrate how kWIQly (we hope) offer very SLIPPERY support for our clients

What is a SLIPPERY technique?

Simple
Low to no initial cost
Installs easily
Proves value fast
Plays well with others
Easy to use
Return on Investment is obvious
Your customers can’t live without it

Michael Skok who works for North Bridge runs workshops at Harvard Business School Startup Secrets and his brother David from Matrix Partners co-operate to explain this in the business context more thoroughly here

Note from kWIQly - David was helpful when we were beginning to define our business process and we really appreciate the lectures Michael has put together)

However, although these are clearly intended in terms of delivering a product or service I think it is fairly obviously relevant when you are trying to "sell" (or install?) a new idea or behaviour.

What does this mean to the energy manager ?

As you will see, with the early issues the energy manager has a headstart, but remember the story of the hare and tortoise. You need to tick all the slippery boxes, or your efforts will be less effective.

Simple

Do watch this - seventeen minutes well spent !

So here, the energy manager starts with a natural advantage when dealing with non-technical people. People simply "get", energy savings.

Obviously, I am not talking about more technical aspects of building controls here, rather the straightforward ideas of switching things off diligently, setting time-clocks and thermostats appropriately, closing windows and so on.

They get it because they are brought up to at least understand "waste not want not", "save the pennies and the pounds save themselves" and so on.

However, you need to bring this into personal context. If you run a chain of pubs in the UK at the moment for example, energy costs may be the difference between profit and loss, (and more personally) having a job or not ! - there is also the environmental context to consider.

Low to no Initial cost

Again an easy win, in theory. Yes, it requires a small effort (a tiny one), but also an attentiveness just as they are rushing out after work, and during the working day.

Technology and devices, means people are more and more stuck in their seats. So maybe you can "sell" against the friction of doing nothing, by emphasizing that by getting up and switching a light off, or walking up the stairs to save a lift (elevator) from shuttling down to serve them is a triple win. Exercise, a quick break from work, and good for the planet. It's also great for peer approval - being energy conscious is cool.

Installs easily

We come equipped at birth - by the time you can reach a light switch you can turn it off. It may be worth mentioning to staff they can teach this at home with their kids too ! Maybe making a game of it for little rewards (this also re-enforces motivation - see below)

Proves value quickly

See how I avoided the pun there? (kWIQly - Powerful Intelligence fast - sorry for spoon-feeding)

The most simple measures like flipping a light switch make sense instantly - infinite ROI and zero payback

But many non-technical types do not understand that lowering a thermostat overnight can have a benefit (they get all tied up "with how the weather effects saving potential"), and worse many people do not know that fluorescents no payback in microseconds if you switch them off.

Plays well with others

This is not really an issue - you dont leave your colleagues in the dark, and they do not override the boiler-house control systems (hopefully - you can manage the tougher stuff :)

Easy to Use

Just like the "installs easily", your staff are in control of their own bodies, but you also need to be thinking about motivators (energy dashboards - are they simple to the average member of staff), leader-boards, are they fair, transparent, simple.

ROI Obvious

Here management buy-in can make a huge difference. Environmental rewards are soon overlooked. So why not run a series of competitions (best perfromance improvement wins night out on the town - or whatever floats their boats) HA - when I typed that google autocorrect fixed it to "water floats their boats" - well I guess so ! - perhaps a river cruise is the answer!

Your customers can’t live without it

Get your senior management or financial team to show some simple graphics that compare energy costs to the P&L, (their buy-in is crucial and you will be doing yourself a favour too ! and then perhaps conclude with the video I included above (or something similar) that explains how serious global warming is.

Conclusion

Being Slippery is not necessarily hard - but it is something you can plan for - and have more effect. So below and very concisely I will explain how this applies to kWIQly

Example

Heres what we can do with the sea of energy data you may be getting from smart meters, but not have the time to use (or even glance through)

Simple

We extract data from your automatic meter reading (AMR or smart meter) sources, add relevant weather data and interpret problems using pattern recognition.

Google is complex behind the scenes too, but it succeeds because you put a word in and it searches for you. Simple!

What we offer is a bit like that. We know the word "waste" - so we can just get on with the work behind the scenes. We send you notifications of as many top wasting sites as you want to see at a frequency you choose. If we don't add value - you don't pay (this is rather different from the metering companies who have to install expensive infrastructure etc.)

Low to no initial cost

No initial cost, no lock-in, no reason not to try.

Installs easily

There is no install. If your utility or some other service can show you graphs of data, we can pull out the data for you (in the cloud) and get on with the work - We do need a authority and contact details from you - as a one off set up, and things like opening hours, addresses etc we can upload from your data or "scrape it" from your public facing websites.

Proves value fast

As soon as we sign an NDA to protect your security, and you give us a green light, we can get started. It sometimes takes us a few days to set up, but after that. You get to see the fires as soon as they start ! With energy waste savings always relate to response time. The sooner we help you flag a problem, the sooner you know you can address it - and you dont need to read 100's of charts before you know where to start !

Plays well with others

We can accept data from any AMR provider, so you are free to switch utilities, we can build on top of existing providers of visualisation tools (we are effectively finding the ones to look at)

Easy to use

If it is routine (and if you choose) we can handle follow up with template emails so we can send messages to people who need to act (in your name and wording) and with very simple, to understand actions. We can then track that action has been taken, send reminders etc. Alternatively, we can send items for action to you.

Return on Investment is obvious

Since this is a "pay as you go" offering, you only use as much or as little as makes sense to you. This makes it massively more relevant to you than the original data collations service, there you pay for all meters, not the important ones only. We can do this as we are not tethered to the data acquisition technology.

If you want one site per week to focus on out of 1000 - that's fine. But as you find the first pays, you may want more, or more frequently, or for us to search for more compel problems. or handle your standard reporting (degree-day reports etc).

Your customers can’t live without it

This is for you to judge - it remains to be seen...

Our job is to make your routine, time consuming tasks (that clearly pay-back but are sometimes horridly complex) simply go away. To make dealing with priorities delightful.

You probably want more freedom to focus on real structural problems or getting more SLIPPERY with your staff. If so we can help, and help make you look good ! (as if you didn't:)

Clicking is even easier than flipping a light switch, so if you want us to make contact - you know what to do :)

Thanks for reading (and please share if you think this might be interesting to colleagues)

James

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