Energy Efficiency  -  February 21, 2019

U of Hawaiʻi creates energy-smart university

The University of Hawaiʻi has completed the installation of an Energy Internet of Things (IoT) platform across the institution’s 10 campuses. The project helps advance the university’s strategic sustainability priorities, which focuses on energy data management, energy efficiency, and expanding its renewable energy portfolio.

“One of the first steps in strategic energy management is getting control of your data. This project allowed us to do that,” said Miles Topping, director of energy management for the University of Hawaiʻi’s Office of Sustainability in a statement. “You cannot manage what you cannot measure, so now that we can see what’s working efficiently and what’s not, we will be able to make better decisions. Having this data at our fingertips is a turning point for sustainability and energy performance at UH.”

The system includes Blue Pillar’s Energy IoT platform, which provides the UH Office of Energy Management (OEM) with enhanced visibility into its energy usage by centralizing data across disparate systems and equipment. With funding support from Elemental Excelerator, the Blue Pillar energy network is a foundational component of the University of Hawaiʻi’s goal to achieve net zero energy use by 2035. The platform collects and analyzes data from more than 30 of the most energy-intensive buildings across UH Mānoa and is integrated with:

• Utility substation monitoring
• 75 multi-building electric sub-meters
• 30 building automation systems from multiple manufacturers
• 44 solar photovoltaic systems and solar inverters

 According to the statement, this is one of the first university projects in the world with a vendor-agnostic IoT energy platform aggregating such a wide array of distributed assets, systems, and equipment. The new IoT network provides energy managers with a central data repository for all energy data regardless of asset type, manufacturer or communication type. The UH OEM has already used this data to create a baseline on energy consumption and will continue to mine this data to optimize strategies for energy and cost savings for the University of Hawaiʻi.

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