NREL’s Energy Management Information System Powers its Intelligent Campus

Narrator: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has two Colorado campuses, 250 electrical meters, 28,000 data points, and 123 electric vehicle charging stations. This campus energy information feeds into devices, data services, and applications that perform centralization, normalization, and visualization of facility data; interval meter analytics; automated, 24/7 fault detection and diagnostics; and supervisory control for electric vehicle supply equipment.

NREL's Intelligent Campus is an Energy Management Information System, or EMIS, to manage and save energy, track and report energy use, and test, demonstrate, and learn. 

Michelle Slovensky: An energy management information system is a family of software tools to manage, analyze, and control building energy use and system performance. NREL's energy management information system enables our campus to function as a living laboratory.

We can study the integration of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies, make operational decisions that minimize emissions or enhance resiliency, and support a variety of research projects. One of these research projects gives us insight into the electric vehicle supply equipment in our parking garage-providing management, costing, and time-series data.

Narrator: NREL's Intelligent Campus gathers data from utility bills, real-time weather, interval meters, building automation systems, distributed energy resources, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and facility systems of record. Several layers of devices, data services, and applications then provide data and metadata to applications that perform analysis and controls.

Stephen Frank: We've experienced multiple benefits from NREL's energy management information system, or EMIS. Installing the EMIS has improved and streamlined our ability to perform our required Energy Independence and Security Act energy and water audits, and has helped us find savings opportunities we would have otherwise missed.

We also use the EMIS for measurement and verification of savings from energy and water conservation measures-this is for performance and cost tracking. We leverage the EMIS for other required reporting, such as the Site Sustainability Plan, and we use it for research-effort technology demonstration and supervisory control capabilities. For example, we maintain a real-time feed of campus electricity demand. Our vendor partner uses this feed to schedule electric vehicle charging in a way that minimizes demand charges.

Jefferey Murrell: These systems deliver direct value to federal agencies through energy and cost savings related to measurement and verification, reporting and compliance, facility retro-commissioning and retuning, and avoided equipment performance drift.

Narrator: Learn more about energy management information systems for federal facilities on our website.