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If someone, or something, is being an energy hog in PAE’s downtown Portland office, associate Ruwan Jayaweera knows about it.

Over the past six months, the firm has improved efficiency while beta-testing software developed by Sydney, Australia-based Switch Automation that collects and aggregates energy usage data.

Using real-time information on the mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering firm’s energy use, Jayaweera can pinpoint inefficiencies in a workspace. This can be as finite as individually monitoring circuits to hone in on the energy usage of work stations containing five or six people

“These individual groups, we’re able to monitor separately,” Jayaweera said. “I’ve seen some spikes in energy use, (and) I’ve gone down and talked to them.”

PAE is the only Portland-area office to using the energy monitoring software, said Peter Rake, Switch’s chief operating officer. Rake’s company has plans to soon install a similar system, called a Switch Hub App, to collect data from the energy meters in Unico Properties‘ U.S. Bancorp Tower.

Switch has already established itself in Washington state, with installations tracking energy use in 18 downtown Seattle buildings and Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond.

“You can actually give people an operational picture,” Rake said. “We’re bringing in all sorts of operational metrics. We’re then aggregating your data to give a broader look.”

Level up

The real-time energy usage information has allowed PAE to take to the next level an already efficient office, PAE President Paul Schwer said. The firm about a year ago moved into renovated office space in the Yeon Building on Southwest Fifth Avenue that includes individual vents that control the temperature at each desk and occupancy sensors that turn off computers when staffers step away. The office is expected to gain ENERGY STAR and Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design Platinum certification.

Schwer said he’s been pleased to see that many of the efficiency measures are working, but there have been some surprises, like bumps in energy use at night when the office should be unoccupied.

“The question is: How do you get (energy use) down even further?” he said. “One of the things you notice in these buildings is you really have to pay attention to the phantom loads. We’re finding out a bit more that tells us there is stuff going on at night, but we’d never know that without the level of energy monitoring we have.”

While designing the renovation, the firm’s engineers modeled the energy use in the office. Comparing the modeling to actual usage is teaching staffers about how to make better predictions, Jayaweera said.

“The accuracy of the models we make are really based on how well we predict the schedule on tenant behavior,” he said. “Then we can compare our model to actual (usage). With software like this, we can get deeper with our clients on how energy is used. That’s a powerful tool.”

Comparison and contrast

Firm staffers were also curious how a renovation to make office space in a historic building more efficient compared to the firm’s Seattle office in the Bullitt Center, a commercial building constructed to the stringent standards of the Living Building Challenge. Requirements for the certification include self-sufficiency for energy and water use while fully occupied for at least 12 continuous months.

“We said, ‘We’ve got this Seattle building built to the Living Building Challenge. What if we took a 100-year-old building to see how far we can go?’ ” Schwer said. “It created this ultimate test case for us.”

The Switch Automation software can chart energy usage, and the associated cost, down to 15-minute increments. This is much more detail than looking at a monthly utility bill, Schwer said.

“Traditionally, we would get a feedback loop on the whole building,” he said. “Now we can figure out where we are off.”

The energy usage data has led to the firm testing out various techniques to improve the comfort of individual staffers, such as heated wrist pads and foot pads that turn off when the desk is unoccupied, Jayaweera said. He can then use the software to track whether these measures have reduced overall energy use.

Since PAE started tracking this data, Schwer said, he’s realized it’s a great way to hold the design of highly efficient buildings accountable.

“It’s pretty versatile, but it’s almost overwhelming what you first set it up,” Schwer said. “Certainly, with a green building the idea of monitoring them is already going to the next level.”