14. Describe the details and scenario associated with the Projected Simple Payback Period calculation. Provide justification in terms of energy/water/$ savings and detail the assumptions around implementation cost, if the technology is fully commercialized. What size implementation? What costs of energy? What climate zone?
Use baseline indicators (e.g., Energy Use Intensity, or EUI) when referencing the cost of energy. (Limit 2500 characters)
Immediate payback can be achieved with the following details and scenario.
First of all there must be an open building automation system in the building, which has Web Services feature available. Not all BACnet systems available commercially today have implemented Web Services functionality. In the case of The White House and Penn State University, both facilities utilize the ALC WebCTRL product, which does make use of BACnet Web Services in its product. The most popular BACnet systems are implementing BACnet Web Services capabilities into their product line.
Next of all, a Drupal web site must be presently hosted somewhere that is regularly accessed by the occupants of the targeted facilities. The success of an Open Energy dashboard implementation is based on the premise that real-time feedback drives behavior change and improves operational efficiency.[i] It is the behavior of the building occupants in the targeted facility that is the focus. So the objective is to present the building data intermixed within the Drupal web applications that are currently used by the building occupant. By intermixing the building energy and/or environmental data with other web content, user/occupants will become as familiar with their own energy use patterns as they are with the news of the day. Again in the case of The White House and Penn State University, Drupal is used for main facility web site that is frequented by building occupants routinely throughout the day.
Finally, there must be high-level management support for the Open Energy initiative. This is especially necessary because the Office of Information Technology and the Facility Management Departments are not under the same organizational structure and have different priorities. Working jointly to implement the interoperability dependency of Open Energy requires maximum cooperation and communication between these two groups. Indeed this should be easier than ever to justify because of the precedence already set by such Federal initiatives as “The Energy Data Initiative”[ii], the “Roadmap for a Digital Government”[iii], and President Obamas Executive Order Focused on Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance.[iv]
When these three factors are in place the size of the implementation, the cost of energy and the climate zone have no impact on the Projected Simple Payback period.