0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to

0:02

the modern energy management podcast.

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This is a podcast for energy

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sustainability and facilities innovators

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to share their stories of modern energy management

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at their organizations. My name is Amber,

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our trip, and I'm your producer and host

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of the show and I'm happy to

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be joined here by my co host , Nate

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Nylas . Thanks Amber. Ready to rock. And

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today we have a really special episode we've

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brought on one of our partners from Urgenet

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and with us today we have Tim

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Porter who is the director of partner sales

0:34

at Urgenet. Welcome to the show, Tim.

0:37

Thanks Amber. Really excited about being here today.

0:40

So Tim, I was looking forward to this

0:42

one. I know we've had an opportunity

0:45

to work together for the last almost six

0:47

years now and various

0:49

, uh, you know, partner capacities, but also

0:52

through different events , uh , that we

0:55

have , uh, supported both organizations,

0:57

which is fantastic for the people

0:59

that don't know Urgenet

1:02

as well by name. I love

1:04

for you to take a moment just to tell us a little bit more

1:06

about the organization, kind

1:08

of your role or the team's mission

1:10

and driving energy and sustainability

1:14

and how you got here.

1:16

Nate, happy to be here. Thanks for that quick

1:18

intro. I'd be happy to give a quick overview

1:21

of uh , of our business and as

1:23

you said, we may not be that well known

1:26

because often we are just a plumbing

1:28

and side of a lot of the tools

1:30

that get used by energy professionals

1:33

to make the good decisions that they

1:35

make every day. And so we're in a

1:37

nutshell, I guess the way, best way to describe

1:39

us as plumbers of utility data,

1:41

we have a platform that we built that

1:44

automates gathering data from over 6,000

1:46

utilities today in an automated

1:48

way that allows you to not have

1:51

to worry about the messy, dirty

1:53

work of collecting the data that you need as

1:55

an energy professional to make

1:57

the decisions that you need to make and do the planning

2:00

and reporting that you're being asked to do.

2:02

My specific role here is

2:05

I've been here about six years, a little over six years,

2:08

and I help integrate our solution

2:10

with partners that are the ones really

2:12

helping companies make those good decisions

2:14

and drive their energy initiatives

2:16

, uh, as, as lucid does. So

2:18

, uh, really happy to be here and talk about

2:21

what we're seeing in the world of modern

2:23

technology and in the energy world.

2:26

That's awesome. And I don't really want to trivialize

2:29

how much lift that

2:31

is. Right? Uh , you probably have an army

2:33

of folks I know that are working, you

2:35

know, with that data. We have so many

2:38

customers that are living in the world of

2:41

manual data entry spreadsheets,

2:43

you know, data quality , uh , et cetera.

2:46

And so maybe tell us a little bit, it's

2:48

a big lift, right, for you guys to have an engine

2:51

that can support folks to make it easier to drive

2:53

data to platforms like ours. Give

2:56

us a look. [inaudible] behind the curtain.

2:59

Yeah. So it is , uh

3:01

, a fairly large sized

3:03

task to take on the role that we've,

3:05

that we've taken on. We've got about somewhere

3:07

North of 400 people in our business today.

3:10

We've been doing it for 10 plus years

3:13

and that's all to get to the point that we are in now

3:15

and we realized pretty quickly after starting

3:18

that there are just so many data

3:21

sources in the utility world,

3:23

especially as you start to do this globally that

3:26

your job kind of will never stop and

3:28

you'll always find a new place to

3:30

go and build a bot or write some

3:32

software. They can grab data and

3:34

that's why our job has, has required that

3:36

we continue to grow at the rate that we have. We've

3:38

got, as I said, connections I think

3:40

today is just North of 6,500

3:42

utilities and we've

3:44

grown that internationally quite a bit in the

3:47

last couple of years to about 47

3:50

different countries I believe as well

3:52

and all different dialects and languages. So

3:55

it's a, it's a job that never finishes

3:57

because once we think we've gotten most of the

3:59

integrations completed, somebody comes up with

4:01

a new one that they would like and then there's the

4:03

ongoing upkeep of

4:05

the keeping those connections live.

4:07

And active because they're

4:09

always changing. They're always changing. We have

4:12

to have people, programmers that are always looking

4:14

for what needs to be tweaked next to keep

4:16

the data flowing. So yeah , it's a , it's

4:18

a fairly large endeavor that we've,

4:20

that we've decided to focus our, our

4:23

lives on, but we do feel like it helps reduce

4:26

a bunch of the, the dirty work

4:28

that otherwise people would have to figure out on

4:30

their own and detract from all the things

4:32

that could be done if you had those smart energy

4:34

folks doing things that really helped impact

4:37

or their properties and impact their business

4:39

as opposed to just gathering spreadsheets full

4:41

of data.

4:42

Well, we certainly appreciate it. You know, it's

4:44

like the job of the guy painting the, the

4:46

golden state bridge, right? Never ending.

4:49

But , uh, you know, I think, I think the

4:51

myth in the industry is that utility data

4:54

is clean and it should be easy to

4:56

implement into an energy and sustainability

4:58

platform. But there is a ton, as you know,

5:01

sausage making going on behind the scenes between

5:03

our two organizations to

5:05

really deliver that, that end use product.

5:07

So we appreciate it.

5:09

Yeah. And it's , it's interesting and really timely

5:11

that uh, because we just launched a survey

5:14

together , um, Urgenet and building

5:16

O S to the smart

5:18

energy decisions audience, all

5:21

about how many energy

5:23

managers are still out there using these

5:25

manual processes to collect

5:27

building data. So Tim,

5:29

do you want to speak to , um, a little

5:31

tease of what we've learned from the survey?

5:34

Okay , yeah, sure. Happy to share

5:36

some of the data that we've gathered

5:39

in advance. You know, we weren't entirely sure

5:41

we had a guess at what we thought the

5:43

responses might indicate. But

5:45

, uh , we have seen specifically

5:47

in this most recent survey that

5:50

somewhere near 55% of

5:52

energy managers are still using

5:55

manual data collection for at least of

5:57

their utility bills. So that's over

6:00

half the majority of energy

6:02

managers still relying on some kind of manual process

6:05

to do this. And if you get

6:07

to the point of looking at interval

6:10

data or meter readings from, from

6:12

smart meters that really have a , a great

6:14

deal to do with the impact that your energy programs

6:16

can have. 32%

6:19

of those are manually recording

6:21

meter readings from smart

6:23

meters into their systems.

6:26

And I would venture to guess that

6:28

the remaining 68% that aren't

6:30

doing it manually are probably in

6:32

the category of just not doing it at

6:34

all because meter data is

6:36

data that comes typically, you know, for electric

6:39

meters at 15 minute intervals and

6:41

is available often if not

6:43

in real time. Certainly every day. And

6:45

I don't think there's many folks downloading

6:48

meter data every day to manually

6:50

enter it. They're probably doing it every week or every month. So

6:53

, uh , yeah, those are some of the, some

6:56

was it results that we saw from the survey. And

6:58

we also saw that on

7:00

the flip side, 67% or two

7:02

thirds said that getting

7:04

data streams automated and organized

7:07

and brought into some kind of accessible location

7:09

or database or system is

7:11

really important to the success of their energy management

7:13

program. They feel like that's a really key

7:16

component of success

7:18

for them. So a lot of we're doing it manually,

7:20

still, majority of them and an even higher

7:22

majority say that automating and getting these or these

7:24

data streams organized as a key success

7:27

criteria. So there's certainly a good gap

7:29

there that, that , uh,

7:32

that can be, that people could be helped with.

7:35

Yeah, it was really fascinating to see those results

7:37

because you're right, we always kind of had an idea. We know

7:39

that people are still using a lot of manual processes,

7:42

but to see that 55%

7:44

are still in some way or

7:46

another manually processing billing data,

7:50

just really telling. Um,

7:52

so I know that you guys have done some research

7:54

at Urgenet around the

7:56

hidden impacts and costs of manually

7:59

processing utility bill data. I'd

8:01

love to hear your perspective on that.

8:04

Sure. There's, there's a handful of ways I'll

8:07

describe four specific reasons

8:10

or impacts that we have seen,

8:12

maybe not necessarily in any particular

8:14

order, but the first one that people typically think of

8:16

is cost, cost of labor, and

8:19

with the complexity of all the different

8:21

formats that you're going to see from utility

8:23

invoices , just as an example, we've

8:26

seen that it can cost up to $5 to

8:28

process a single bill manually. Um,

8:30

and there's also a human costs to that,

8:33

that outside of just what you might be paying

8:35

someone to do that work, these

8:37

are not going to be super enthusiastic

8:40

and, and , uh , stable people in

8:42

your organization if that's all that they're doing every

8:44

day. So we've seen a really high

8:46

burnout rate from manual data entry

8:48

teams. And so there's this retention

8:51

problem. As everyone knows, the

8:53

more you have to hire people in to take over

8:55

someone who's left, there's a an

8:57

in built expense of trying to get somebody ramped

9:00

up. And so that retention problem

9:02

is particularly challenging when you're

9:04

asking someone to sit behind a desk and type dating and all

9:07

day. So automating that helps make

9:09

the most of their time and uh,

9:11

only really ideally dedicated to

9:13

people that you're paying salaries to,

9:15

to things that are more impactful for the

9:17

organization. So cost is kind of

9:19

the first impact. It's probably

9:21

not so hidden cause that seems to be one of the big

9:23

drivers often. The second

9:25

is data quality and

9:28

manual data entry is

9:30

pretty famously error prone. We've

9:32

seen that probably

9:34

conservatively speaking, even

9:37

folks that are really good at it with have that have tools

9:39

to do it, we'll make an error every,

9:41

at least one every 100 data elements

9:44

that they're entering. So depending

9:46

on how many data elements you're actually collecting

9:48

off of an invoice , um , you

9:51

might be making a mistake on every

9:53

two or three bills, every three or four bills

9:55

that you are entering data for. And

9:58

that's maybe fine if you maybe mistyped type

10:00

the name of a tariff, for instance.

10:02

But if you fat finger a usage

10:04

or a peak demand or a peak

10:06

demand charge and you misplace a decimal, that

10:08

can make some pretty big impact on what

10:11

you're reporting against. And certainly decisions that

10:13

you're making. So quality is

10:15

always uh , also a , a

10:17

factor that matters quite a bit and

10:19

people, I'm finding

10:21

problems with the manual data process. A

10:24

couple of other ones I would say

10:26

that maybe are quite so

10:28

obvious but they are

10:30

in particular use cases. One is processing

10:32

speed. So people that are relying

10:34

on getting the bill to make more timely

10:37

decisions. Maybe this is just your

10:39

AP department, maybe it's just your folks

10:42

that are making sure that the bill is paid on time, how

10:44

quickly you get those invoices

10:46

in. The data from them really, really matters to

10:48

them because the bill is kind of in between

10:51

the company and I'm in a late fee or

10:53

God forbid a shutoff notice. So

10:56

speed actually can be impacted

10:59

through automation quite a bit as well. There's really

11:01

two people that you can try to remove from

11:03

this process. The one we talked about , um,

11:06

or optimizing this process. One is the data entry

11:08

person themselves, but the other ones , the mailman, and

11:11

one of the biggest sources of delay in

11:13

getting the data that you want is just having

11:15

to go through the mail

11:17

and waiting for the post office to deliver the

11:19

invoice that has all this data on it that you want to

11:21

get. And so if you can simply remove

11:23

the mail man from this equation, then

11:26

I then you can really speed up

11:28

the timing of when this data is going to be made

11:31

available to people. So speed is really an important

11:33

thing. Um, and then the

11:35

last one I'll just mention because I just had a really

11:37

interesting conversation with a customer

11:40

a couple of months ago, and

11:42

I guess you might call this business continuity,

11:45

but people that are really relying on

11:47

utility invoices coming in everyday , maybe

11:50

multifamily properties that need

11:52

this information to create the rent

11:54

bills that they're sending out to their tenants. For

11:56

instance. For example, if

11:59

there's anything that disrupts the flow of that

12:01

data and if the data flow

12:04

is driving around on four wheels in a , in a truck,

12:06

a mail truck, and it's got hands all over it with

12:08

people processing invoices, then that can really cause

12:10

problems. And this one customer of

12:13

ours told us that there was a, a

12:15

chemical spill, I think it was, believe

12:17

it or not, at a mail processing

12:20

facility. So somebody had shifted

12:22

a package with some liquid that broke

12:24

open and spilled all over the floor and

12:27

they literally shut the post office processing

12:29

center down for about eight days

12:32

and all that, while every bit of data

12:34

out of mail that came into that facility

12:37

was on hold. And so they went weeks

12:40

without getting invoices that they were responsible

12:42

for paying and that caused real,

12:45

real problems. So removing all

12:47

the physical aspects of

12:49

retrieving this information really

12:51

does help kind of avoid problems that you

12:53

might never have thought about. I wouldn't have

12:56

expected a chemical spill in

12:59

a post office processing

13:02

facility to ever be a problem for energy

13:04

management people to worry about. But that ended up, that ended up

13:06

being a real problem. So those are just some of the

13:08

impacts or kind of maybe not so

13:10

obvious reasons that mangled data collection

13:13

can, can cause problems.

13:15

Yeah, it's pretty amazing that with

13:18

all the technology going on around

13:20

us and the things happening in buildings, how

13:22

much we're , we still rely on

13:24

manual , uh, delivery,

13:26

right. Of something is, eh , that's been

13:29

around for so long as like do utility

13:31

bill . It's, it's kinda mind blowing .

13:33

It is. It is. But it also speaks

13:35

to the nature of the

13:37

industry as well. If you were talking

13:39

about computers

13:42

or if you were talking about napkins

13:44

or any other commodity or , or

13:46

, uh , important resource

13:48

that a company buys and consumes, you

13:51

might not worry so much about how many vendors

13:53

you're getting it from and how they represent what it is

13:55

you're buying from them. But in the utility

13:57

space, you often don't have a choice,

13:59

right? And regulator in

14:01

regulated markets and deregulated markets, you do,

14:04

but they're , they're more interested in providing you

14:06

with the, the power that

14:08

you're buying, the water that you're buying the gas turbine.

14:10

And they don't really care quite as much

14:13

how the data is presented

14:15

to you, right? They're just, they're just trying to make

14:18

sure that they get paid for what they're providing you. And

14:20

so there's not a lot of incentive for

14:22

the, for instance, 3000 electricity

14:24

providers in the country to come up with any

14:26

standard way to show you what you've

14:28

used from them or tell you how

14:30

it is that you're paying them. And that's different

14:33

when you're able to consolidate as a, as

14:35

a company a commodity that, that

14:37

you might only source from two or three different

14:39

vendors , um, in

14:41

your organization. And when this ends up

14:43

potentially representing, you

14:45

know, five to 10% of the,

14:48

of the corporate spend in America, that's a pretty

14:51

big piece of what people,

14:54

companies are spending their money on. That

14:56

is coming from a set of

14:58

vendors that are, you know,

15:00

widely varied. And I'm not sure there's any

15:02

industry that you'd be buying stuff from. Certainly

15:04

at that level that's more this

15:07

more fragmented and has more providers

15:09

that you're actually kind of forced to deal with.

15:11

So I think it does speak to the fact that

15:13

this is one of the reasons utility

15:16

invoicing and span and data is one of

15:18

the lead , last sort of bastions

15:20

of, of enterprise data to

15:23

be automated in any form or fashion.

15:26

I think that's an interesting point and

15:28

most of it, Tim, and you'll have to tell me, has

15:30

been a push from regulatory

15:32

, um, reasons

15:34

for the utilities to actually do what they've

15:36

done to open up the flow or access

15:39

to that data. Is that a correct?

15:42

That is true. That is true. You can get

15:44

there. There are, there's enough

15:46

movement of foot now to help

15:48

people become more efficient

15:50

in their consumption and to help

15:53

people be more green

15:55

in their thinking and more sustainable in their

15:57

actions. And that does

15:59

start with having information to allow them

16:01

to do that. And so the utility companies can

16:03

help there because they are the

16:05

sources of the, of the data that,

16:08

you know, they're the ones reading the meters. They're the ones that are showing

16:10

what your peak demand is and at what time of day. All

16:12

that information is coming from the utility companies. Um,

16:15

so they, they understand that they need to make it

16:18

available. Uh, but

16:20

that's a pretty big lift on their part

16:23

to even make it available. Asking

16:25

them to also do that

16:27

in a way that standardized or

16:30

easy to consume machine readable,

16:33

all that stuff is not something that utility companies

16:35

a are really probably interested in or

16:37

be really equipped to do. They're not, they're

16:39

not data people. So , um,

16:42

but yeah, for sure we're getting

16:44

cooperation from them and they're all happy for

16:46

us to help them get the data that their customers

16:48

need , uh , in a way that they can use

16:51

it more easily. Uh, but that

16:53

they, they're almost more excited about it

16:55

because that means they don't have to try and do it and

16:57

they can let someone like us do

17:00

even a better reason for us to , uh,

17:03

choose this partnership. Um,

17:05

you mentioned something in the top four. I thought those were super

17:08

interesting and maybe as it relates to

17:10

what we see in modern energy

17:13

manager too , you talked about the cost of

17:15

labor. Your first point there, and

17:17

specifically you talked about data

17:19

entry teams. You know what we find a lot

17:22

of times is that they don't

17:24

have a data entry team . So the burnout

17:27

is really high level employees,

17:29

right? They have individuals

17:31

whose value added activities should be focused

17:34

in spent elsewhere, but they're doing

17:36

the data entry. So I think the risk becomes

17:38

even higher to those core

17:41

groups , core teams or personnel that

17:43

has it just as a a job they have

17:45

to facilitate to deliver a report,

17:47

whether it's internally, externally, et cetera

17:49

. So the risk is quite a bit higher on

17:51

the point number one.

17:53

Yeah, no question. No question. I mean the,

17:55

the real end users

17:57

of all this information, the real kind of

17:59

audience in this Newton

18:01

and on modern version of

18:03

energy management and sustainability

18:06

management is at

18:08

the end users K in the actual , you were talking

18:10

about a company specifically who is the one that

18:12

has to make decisions and be smart

18:14

about what they're doing. And the people that they

18:16

hire are typically not data

18:18

entry clerks. They're not looking to do that.

18:21

That's not a headcount that they typically

18:23

have many , uh,

18:25

that they can pull from or hire for.

18:27

And so they have people doing it that are,

18:30

like you said, they're , they're trained to enter energy

18:32

professionals. These are sustainability reporting

18:34

, uh , degreed

18:36

people coming out of college that want to help

18:39

the company be more sustainable

18:41

in their efforts. And when they're told, this

18:43

is great, I'm going to let you look at all this data

18:46

to figure out what we ought to be doing next.

18:48

But Hey, by the way, you need to spend half your week

18:50

getting the data available to do that. They're

18:52

like, wait a minute. I didn't want to sign up to be

18:54

a , a spreadsheet jockey or a guy go on to

18:56

websites to download invoices

18:59

and look at it and type it in. So , um,

19:01

it's really a matter of trying to get

19:03

your, your really talented professionals

19:06

that people are being given resources to

19:08

hire and allow

19:10

them to do what it is that they've been trained to do

19:12

and that they're good at and not forced

19:15

them to do some of this grunt work

19:17

that makes their job no fun. Um,

19:20

for sure. So yeah, you're , you're exactly right. A turnover

19:23

for a person that is being forced to

19:25

do dat data entry when they would much rather be

19:27

right. Sustainability reports are looking for

19:30

locations that have terrible peak demand

19:32

that they could try to focus on some

19:34

projects with. Is a, is a big loss

19:36

when that does happen.

19:38

Absolutely. Tim, I , I'd love to know,

19:41

you know, Urgenet has been growing rapidly,

19:43

so congratulations and hats off to the team,

19:45

but I think a lot of the growth

19:48

has been driven by

19:51

energy and sustainability being,

19:54

you know, up front and , uh,

19:56

of interest to more and more companies as

19:58

we see, you know, the environmental

20:01

changes, regulatory changes, just

20:03

overall economic growth. Do

20:05

you see it's there or are there other problems

20:07

that you guys are focused on solving that is

20:10

really expanding the business?

20:11

No, our growth really in the last in particular

20:15

couple of years has been

20:17

for a couple of reasons. Primarily just

20:19

I think this is my guest and if I had a crystal ball,

20:22

then my CEO would, would pay me to rub

20:24

it in and find out what the next thing is. But it's

20:27

really been, I think an overall lift that's this

20:29

occurred in the space in

20:31

the energy management sustainability industry.

20:34

And it goes everywhere from people

20:37

taking that as a degree in there.

20:39

And, you know , college experience I think, which

20:41

is a great indicator. I do a lot with boy Scouts.

20:43

There's actually a sustainability edge

20:45

now, believe it or not. Um,

20:47

so, you know, it's, it's become a whole lot more

20:50

of a , of a water

20:52

cooler topic, I believe in something that's

20:54

hitting people's , uh, corporate

20:57

focus and corporate agendas. And

20:59

I also think that because of

21:02

the reporting that's being done more

21:04

frequently now and the ability that people

21:07

have, companies have to compare

21:09

themselves to peers. Not

21:11

only their own investors and constituents,

21:14

or are they asking for, you know, well, how do you stack

21:16

it up against the votes that I'm not invested

21:19

in, in this industry? Um , but they're also

21:21

seeing real meaningful

21:23

change that companies in

21:25

their industries have been able to make,

21:27

not just from a sustainability and green

21:30

perspective, which matters for sure.

21:32

And that does have a lot to do with how

21:34

your company is perceived, but also

21:36

from the bottom line perspective. So,

21:39

you know, we've got some really good examples that we've

21:41

seen of companies that have made,

21:44

you know, significantly

21:46

material cost savings

21:48

, uh , that they've been able to, to,

21:50

to find through investing

21:53

in energy management initiative and

21:55

hiring people that are specialists in just that space.

21:57

And I think seeing people not only

22:01

reap the benefits of, of what the, the

22:03

market says about their business, but also really

22:05

re the financial benefits of

22:07

focusing and investing on

22:10

where to save dollars. Um, it's

22:12

, it's sort of a double, a double whammy

22:14

bonus. And , uh , and people

22:16

are seeing that that's , uh , a real,

22:19

a real achievable goal that , uh , by

22:21

looking at their peers. And so I think in general,

22:23

the industry itself has just gotten a

22:25

lift in the last couple of years because there's been

22:27

a lot of success. It's been reported and that

22:30

people can see,

22:32

I think you nailed it on that, right? We see a big

22:34

shift in just some of the

22:37

personnel in energy and sustainability

22:39

that is obviously very, very mission

22:41

driven, but you nailed it on

22:43

the comparison

22:46

to your peers, right? I think this lift

22:48

of corporate sustainability or corporate

22:50

responsibility , uh, and

22:52

not only how you attract talent, but

22:55

uh, how they are driving and utilizing

22:57

those savings for just the overall

22:59

perception of the organization's been a huge,

23:02

huge driver. And that may be a good

23:04

segue into a question of

23:07

maybe specifically for Urgenet.

23:09

How have you seen customers implement modern

23:12

energy management? Do you have an example you'd love to share?

23:15

Actually, yeah, there is one that comes to mind is

23:17

for a health care organization.

23:19

And it was interesting to track

23:21

their progress and their planning

23:23

efforts. They initially started

23:26

with some direction from their executive

23:28

team with a pretty ambitious goal,

23:31

but effectively just to say, Hey, I need you to try

23:33

to shave 20% of

23:35

our energy spend across the board. And they

23:37

didn't know exactly what that would mean cost wise.

23:39

They assumed that it would for sure have to represent

23:42

some material savings, but that was really the goal

23:44

that they were. And so they started to

23:46

do some planning and they , they did

23:48

actually a very good job of planning some of this

23:50

in a war room before they went out and just started to jump

23:52

in the water with with projects.

23:56

But they realized right away

23:58

that to get what they needed, they

24:00

needed to focus on the data

24:03

and they needed to focus on where it was coming from

24:05

and what information they needed and

24:07

they, they recognized for

24:09

them for it. So they recognize that the data sources

24:12

that they have , they have about

24:14

a hundred facilities all over the country that

24:16

they didn't have anybody who was

24:19

a data specialist. It was looking

24:21

to manually enter data or, or

24:23

even go out and hunt and find this information.

24:25

So they, they decided

24:28

to choose , um, to go the

24:30

automation route and try to get as much of it electronically

24:32

as they, as they possibly could. And

24:35

they started the way that a lot the

24:37

people start where they said they wanted to get

24:39

all the data that they could into

24:42

energy star portfolio manager to compare

24:44

themselves with their peers but also to compare

24:46

themselves to themselves. And

24:49

uh , they did that. They got data from utility

24:51

invoices to begin that. And

24:54

I would call that a fairly traditional or straight

24:56

forward , uh , energy management

24:59

project, right? That , uh, that

25:01

they saw some benefit from, but they realized

25:03

something really interesting quickly

25:06

in a lot of their organization . And other facilities

25:08

are actually hospitals, right?

25:10

So they're a pretty significant

25:13

energy requirements there that are different from

25:15

a corporation. You're not shutting the lights off necessarily

25:18

in hospital at six 30 in the evening

25:20

and you can't turn the air conditioning down like

25:22

you might in a corporate facility. So they had different

25:25

unique requirements and it was

25:27

only after they started to look at the information

25:29

that they realized that a lot

25:31

of the information that they needed was

25:33

going to be way too light to be effective

25:36

if they had to wait for monthly provided

25:39

information. So if they were only

25:41

looking at a data that

25:43

came on invoices and that was it,

25:45

then they were going to be stuck. They needed to

25:47

have data in a much more

25:50

rapid way available

25:52

in a much more rapid way. And so they

25:55

um, they realized that there were daily

25:57

decisions that needed to be made on

26:00

adjusting settings, on changing things

26:02

based on occupancy and that

26:04

sort of thing. That somebody

26:06

who was able to calculate for them that there was over

26:08

$4,000 a day in

26:10

savings that they could either realize

26:13

or not if they

26:15

were able to make decisions on a daily basis.

26:18

And what that said, if you waited for let's

26:20

say 45 days for a new invoice to come out,

26:23

for you to get the data from that invoice and plug

26:25

it into some system that helps you dashboard

26:27

and decide what kind of changes

26:30

you need to make, then you're missing 45

26:32

days worth of $4,000 a day

26:34

in savings opportunity, which

26:37

that math I can do. And that's like

26:39

over $180,000 and

26:42

potential savings

26:44

just because they couldn't make adjustments

26:47

on a daily basis. And so they realized

26:50

very, very quickly that the way they needed

26:52

to do their energy management

26:54

projects was really centralized

26:57

around interval data and they needed to get

26:59

data every day that showed them

27:01

what happened that day based

27:03

on the most recent winter storm or the most recent

27:06

occupancy numbers and what type of

27:08

patients they had on what floors. And

27:10

so by doing that, they were able to

27:12

realize a very high percentage that $180,000

27:16

worth of potential missed savings , uh,

27:19

that really , really made a pretty meaningful impact. So

27:21

they, they ended up having a very, very successful

27:24

project. They , uh, over

27:27

a five year period, they were able to achieve

27:30

that 20% reduction in energy

27:32

use. So what it was, they were tasked with a accomplished,

27:35

but they could also report , um , obviously

27:37

very happily [inaudible] whoever

27:40

was it was in charge of this, of this energy

27:42

initiative that ended up saving.

27:44

And this is Justin. In one year, I

27:47

think this was 2018, they saved

27:49

through those reduction efforts, four

27:52

and a half million dollars in energy

27:54

costs. That was just just in one year. And

27:56

that's a, that's a pretty good chunk

27:58

that one of them , um

28:01

, said they thought that that was the equivalent of

28:03

powering five hospitals

28:05

for free for a year. And so that's

28:07

a pretty easy return on investment to, to

28:09

have your executive team say, yeah, job well done. So

28:12

you know, from a, from a modern energy

28:14

management standpoint, I think the thing

28:16

that impressed me with their project was

28:19

how it was that they went about determining

28:21

what they needed to have in their infrastructure

28:24

and realized quickly by doing it in

28:26

a kind of a logical step wise fashion

28:29

that the most important information

28:31

for them was this daily

28:34

refresh of information

28:36

that could allow them to make daily decisions.

28:39

And so, you know , they got the table stakes in place

28:41

with invoice data and energy star

28:43

portfolio manager and then they went from there

28:46

into a , you know, a much more sophisticated

28:49

daily updated 15 minute

28:51

consumption information type of process

28:54

that they were able to automate and have as a part of a full

28:56

system. So that , I thought that was a really interesting

28:58

and certainly a very successful project

29:01

from one of the customers we've spoken with.

29:03

Well Tim, you're , you're hired bud. I don't

29:05

know how I'm going to come up with a better plug

29:08

for savings for real time.

29:13

Yeah, it's, you know, they're the things that

29:15

you can see everyone that we've talked to

29:17

when they can go and look backwards and

29:19

see what a performance graph

29:21

looks like for their facilities, almost everybody's

29:23

surprised with something either,

29:26

you know, how things don't

29:28

shut off like they expected or when they

29:30

expect they should or spike showing

29:33

up that they can, you know, they really have no explanation

29:35

for , um , so yes , that, that

29:37

level of information really , really

29:39

valuable . A few you got .

29:42

Yeah, I think it's a great point and I think the interesting

29:44

thing is too , and you , and you really nailed it, is

29:46

that when we talk about modern

29:49

energy management or even just

29:51

the applicable use cases for

29:53

where our customers are on their journey

29:56

is it doesn't have to be a massive

29:59

lift , right? If you think about it in terms

30:01

of just figuring out the right infrastructure,

30:04

figuring out the right data needed for the use

30:07

cases, there's an incredible amount

30:09

of savings to be had.

30:11

And it doesn't mean that, you know,

30:13

this decision of modern energy management

30:15

has to be paralyzing. It can, it can really be a

30:17

basic first step.

30:20

Yeah, for sure. In fact, I would say that

30:22

probably most of the successful projects

30:24

that we've heard about and

30:26

talked with didn't start

30:29

with a big bang that they did

30:31

off a piece of the Apple that they could chew

30:33

very comfortably. And, and

30:35

it's also because of the, the

30:38

way the energy team is

30:40

getting itself sort of elevated

30:42

within an organization. It's really

30:44

important for those teams in particular for companies

30:46

just starting out with sustainability

30:49

and energy efforts to have some early wins

30:51

and to have some things that they can point back to, to say,

30:54

you know, this is what I've done. This is the investment that you've

30:56

given me. Here's the return that we've seen

30:58

and did, you know, and then fill in

31:00

the blank. Right. And, and those

31:02

sorts of , um, early

31:05

wins and things that they can go back

31:07

to their constituents

31:09

and say, this is worth it. I can show you why

31:11

, um , quickly is

31:13

really important for them to get that next round of funding

31:15

and help them take the next step as

31:17

opposed to, you know, arguing for $50

31:20

million to invest right on day one and

31:22

hope that it works out.

31:24

No doubt. We see that a lot too. So it's pretty

31:26

exciting too when you can help people with a

31:28

phase one that you'd know is going to be

31:31

highly successful. Yeah . So

31:33

Tim, do you have anything coming up on the urgent

31:36

ed side that you'd like to share with the audience

31:38

or promote? I know you guys are probably active

31:40

in a lot of different initiatives and

31:42

conferences, et cetera .

31:44

Yeah, I'm really, I'm really excited about this

31:46

joint ebook that we're coming out with, with

31:48

building OSTP next month. I think I'm

31:51

really interested to see the feedback that we, that we

31:53

get from the smart people that know what

31:55

they're looking at when they read that type of information.

31:57

But we also have something we're putting together that's

32:00

a cost savings calculator that

32:03

we're really excited about too. And it's intended

32:05

to help people really quickly.

32:07

And at a glance show you based on your current

32:09

processes, how much you might save by

32:12

automating the data collection process

32:15

within your organization. And if we've accurately

32:18

identified that 55%

32:20

of the world is still doing it that way, then

32:22

hopefully those 55%

32:24

majority are going to find this calculator

32:27

interesting as well. So that's something you can look out

32:29

for from Urgenet here in the,

32:31

in the next several weeks.

32:33

Amber, I feel like you've already got the wheels in motion

32:35

on something good to do with that data for, for

32:38

our customers.

32:39

Yeah, that's going to be a great

32:41

resource for our customers. So really looking forward

32:43

to that one. And like you mentioned and

32:45

looking forward to our joint

32:47

state of energy management's ebook

32:50

that's coming out with smart energy decisions.com

32:55

and we're also going to be , um,

32:57

promoting that on a webinar. So we'll probably

32:59

bring Tim back and we'll talk

33:01

about the results from the surveys . So really

33:03

looking forward to that.

33:04

So Tim, one of the things that we love

33:07

to ask everyone towards the tail end

33:09

of these podcasts is, you

33:11

know, for the listeners out there, most are energy

33:13

and sustainability professionals, but

33:16

any words of wisdom that you want to throw

33:18

their direction as they continue

33:20

on their journey and trying to optimize

33:23

their systems or processes

33:25

for the companies that they work for?

33:27

Yeah, I would say maybe three things

33:30

to try to keep it simple. One, look at interval data,

33:32

if you have it , to see what that, what insight that

33:34

might provide your organization. Certainly

33:37

leverage automation where you can because there is

33:39

so much fruit that can be born from

33:41

doing that. And there's so much more that you can do. If

33:43

you can automate the collection sources of this data

33:46

and finally create a plan to

33:48

start with. And I would

33:50

suggest as you brought up Nate

33:52

earlier start slow so that you can go

33:54

fast, bite off a piece that you can chew

33:57

and get some early wins and

33:59

have that grow into the really,

34:02

you know , meaningful, big magnitude

34:04

savings that , uh, that I think are out there for.

34:06

So, so many people that just haven't looked yet.

34:10

Awesome. Move slow so you can move

34:12

fast. I love that. Thank you

34:14

Tim for joining us on the show. I think

34:17

this was a really great episode and

34:19

I think our listeners will walk away

34:21

with a lot of insight after this. The thanks

34:23

again for joining us.

34:25

Thank you guys. Really appreciate it.

34:28

And for all the listeners out there,

34:30

everything that you heard about , um

34:32

, on this podcast episode will

34:34

be available to you on modern energy

34:36

management.co and

34:39

this is a website where will he will be posting our

34:41

podcast, but we'll also be posting the

34:43

ebook , uh , for the state of modern

34:45

energy management and we'll even add

34:47

a link to Urgenet cost-savings

34:50

quiz. So , um,

34:52

be sure to subscribe to our podcast,

34:55

which is available on all podcasting

34:57

platforms. And if you

34:59

like what you hear, please give us a rating

35:01

on Apple podcasts and

35:04

uh, send us a review and let us know

35:06

how we're doing. [inaudible] and we

35:08

will be back next week with more great

35:10

modern energy management stories for you.

35:12

Thanks for tuning in. Thanks Amber.

35:14

Thanks everybody.

35:15

Yeah , so yep .

38:28

And , uh, send us a review

38:31

and let us know how we're doing and

38:33

we will be back next week with more

38:35

great modern energy management stories

38:37

for you. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks,

38:39

Amber. Thanks everybody. Yeah , awesome.

38:44

That was really great. You guys.