Case Study

Thomas Jefferson University Hospital - automatic meter reading reduces healthcare group's utility bills

Thomas Jefferson University and the Jefferson Health System (JHS) make up the largest healthcare group in the Philadelphia region. With over 10 million square feet of clinical, research, teaching and housing property, JHS has an electrical peak demand of 60 megawatts, consuming more than 300,000,000-kilowatt hours per year, 700 million BTUs (British Thermal Units) of natural gas, 325 million pounds of steam and 306 million gallons of water. It spends around $45 million a year on all its utilities.

JHS realised it needed to reduce its energy expenditure but, to do that, it first of all had to find out exactly where it was being used and where savings could be made.

Randy Haines, Energy Manager at JHS, explained: "What we really needed was to introduce automatic meter reading so that we could get near real-time data from each of our 300 meters. I was having to go round once a month and manually read all our meters and submeters. We have 35 buildings scattered across a distance of 35 miles and, not surprisingly, the task took me all day. And then all I ended up with was kilowatt hour information - it didn't give me any real intelligence."

So JHS decided to install an automatic meter reading system using Stark RT software which enables them to collect, store and analyse the data in every meter. Stark also supplied IP-addressable data loggers for each group of meters and, every ten minutes, the application server dials into the data loggers via JHS's intranet.

It collects the information, stores it on the data server, and users can access the information via their own PC using the web server.

Billing errors are easily spotted

As a result of all this new real-time information, Randy now has a complete picture of all the energy used by JHS, by building. He can now also manage peak energy loads much more effectively. For example, the Stark system can automatically go to any of the submeters and, if it is higher than it should be, quickly catch any equipment that's running out of tolerance. He can also compare the electricity bills he is sent with the actual data in the meters and so easily spot any billing errors that would previously have not been picked up. Over the past year this has saved him around $10,000.

The new Stark system has also raised energy awareness generally across the health system. As supervisors have access to their own energy data via the intranet, they now pay more attention to how they use equipment. For example, they only run chillers and vary air handler speeds when they need to. Randy estimates they probably save around $20,000 a year through this greater awareness of energy use.

$1 million savings

The electricity market in Pennsylvania is deregulated, so when JHS was looking to select a new supplier, it was able to aggregate all its meters across the entire health system into one virtual meter and gain a true picture of its demand and loads at any one time. This meant it could go to potential suppliers as a more intelligent shopper and negotiate a much better price.

It selected Sempra as its electricity supplier in 2002 and is saving $1 million a year on its annual contract, thanks - in part - to the real-time metering information.

The Stark RT software enables Randy to produce a whole series of reports which provides him with detailed analysis of energy usage by day, week and month: "I run a daily power report so I can see how we use power at any submeter or group of submeters - I see the actual curve of the energy use. I can see what my peak was yesterday, check if things are being shut off at night, and so on.

"I also produce a weekly power report which compares last week's data to this week's. So if we introduce changes to any piece of equipment, I can instantly see what difference it has made. It's really useful. Next, I run a monthly power report so I can look at how much consumption we used within the whole month and compare it to the same month last year. Seeing it trending up or down is very valuable for the building managers and supervisors.

"Measuring energy is a complicated business," he continues. "For example, we have tenants whom we sub-bill but people constantly move in and move out. We're also adding and deleting meters in our buildings on a regular basis. With the Stark system it's really easy to incorporate these changes into my reports."

Automatic email alerts

When JHS signed up with Sempra, it agreed to a minimum number of kilowatts it would use and also to a maximum demand level. Stark RT automatically runs a report that looks globally at the entire Jefferson Health System energy consumption every 10 minutes.

When they hit 95% of this demand level, it automatically sends him an email to alert him that they are approaching their peak. That's especially helpful in July and August when their cooling systems are running flat out and electricity prices are high.

Randy commented: "What I like about this system is the fact that you can write your own reports. Stark RT gives you about 20-30 templates that you can modify and tailor, so you get reports that give you the precise information you want to look at."

Currently, Randy is developing additional programs within the Stark system. For example, JHS has energy equipment in some buildings that they slow down at night. If for some reason any piece is not slowing down, Randy wants the system to pick this up and alert him to this fact when he comes in in the morning.

Increased research grants

There are further benefits to the system, as Randy explains: "We'll soon be changing a number of our buildings from office space to research space and I'm in the process of submetering all the space that's changing over. If you take the average energy use of a building at $2 a square foot, you might have one floor that uses $4 a square foot. Stark RT shows you exactly how much you use per floor so, by proving we are using $4 a square foot in some areas, we can get a better reimbursement in our research grants."

By having Stark's automatic meter reading system, JHS can clearly see that it is saving energy across the entire group on a daily basis. As Randy concludes: "In the past two years we've seen real advantages to gathering near real-time electricity data: we're reducing energy, we're saving money and we're aware of any system problems the minute they happen. As the Stark system develops and grows, we'll be saving even more energy across the group over the coming months."