PRESENTATION
2016 - Users Conference - San Francisco - Facilities, Water and Energy Management
Using the PI System to Create a Smart Campus that Optimizes Energy and Water Operations
At the UC Davis (University of California, Davis) campus, the PI System has been implemented across two initiatives to optimize energy and water usage. When the California drought became critical in 2014, data management resources were stepped up so the campus would have a complete understanding of baseline water use. Meter data for wells and other water supplies not on the SCADA network were combined with spreadsheet data read from the SCADA system in a common spreadsheet. For the first time in decades, a comprehensive view of whole-campus water use was made available. While this process allowed a complete understanding of water production, it was labor intensive and difficult to maintain. To improve the process, UC Davis pulled real-time data for potable and irrigation water systems from SCADA into the PI System and combined real-time demand data with static usage data to create a dashboard to track and show the campus’s goal to save water. With the data publicly available in an easy to understand format, the campus saved 254 million gallons of potable and irrigation water in 2015, a 24% reduction from the 2013 baseline.
In the second initiative, UC Davis ran a pilot on building energy efficiency that covered two buildings and a total of 140,000 square feet. Most campus HVAC equipment is controlled by a Building Automation System (BAS) provided by Siemens, and in the pilot, this BAS data was imported from Siemens to the PI System to monitor building performance and identify inefficiencies. The presentation will explain the methods used to import and organize data in the PI System as well as the in-house fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) built for the purpose of monitoring and optimizing energy usage at the equipment and building level. In particular, the presentation will touch on an alternative approach, UC Davis is piloting to do FDD by integrating the BAS data through PI Web API with a third party buildings-focused analytics and visualization suite called SkySpark."
Industry
- Facilities & Data Centers
Company
UC Davis Facilities Management
Speaker
Dan Colvin
Dan Colvin is a Data Analyst at the UC Davis Facilities Management, Energy Conservation Office, where he has worked for two and a half years. As a PI System power user, his primary role is to provide data support for facilities and utilities operations to help the campus save energy and water, improve data reporting and visualization, and enhance customer experience. Dan is also one of the primary PI System administrators on campus. Dan Colvin holds a BS in Environmental Science from UC Davis.
Company
UC Davis Facilities Management
Speaker
Sweta Agarwal
Sweta Agarwal is an Energy Engineer at the UC Davis Facilities Management, Energy Conservation Office, where she is part of a team focused on implementing energy retrofits and commissioning projects for buildings. As a PI System end user, her focus is especially on developing automated fault detection and diagnostics for campus buildings with the goal of energy cost reduction and equipment performance optimization. Prior to joining UC Davis, Sweta worked as a researcher modeling carbon capture systems and in a coal power plant. Sweta Agarwal holds a MS in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a BE in Mechanical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science.
Company
UC Davis Utilities
Speaker
Elena Thomsen
Elena Thomsen is an Engineer at UC Davis Utilities, where she has worked as an intern and full-time employee for the last year and a half. She developed a passion for metering and data problems while doing an internship with UC Davis and, in the process, did cutting edge work on campus metering systems. After graduation, Elena accepted a full time position with UC Davis, where she currently functions as one of the primary PI System administrators on campus and as a PI System super user focusing on supporting data needs for the utility metering and water systems. She also provides project management and engineering support for the campus water production systems. Elena Thomsen holds a BS in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UC Davis.