Lincoln Property Company Delivers Value to Cost-Conscious Clients Through Strategic Energy Management

Gridium identified easy, no-cost savings opportunities that slashed tenant energy bills by 25%.

Lincoln Property Company (Lincoln) manages and leases over 498 million square feet of property in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe, with over $94 billion in assets under management. Since 1965, the firm has focused on knowing the goals and meeting the challenge of its tenants, investors, lenders and owners. As sustainability becomes a strategic play for owners relevant and utility costs continue to dramatically increase, Lincoln strives to proactively provide clients with best-in-class solutions that result in meaningful cost savings while furthering sustainability goals. 

As part of that, Lincoln’s West Coast division—which covers California, Utah, Oregon, Washington and Idaho—has had a longstanding public commitment to sustainability, which includes utilizing green leases, tracking and reducing greenhouse gas emissions at each property, and integrating energy efficiency technology solutions like Gridium. This commitment has led to 7.3 million square feet of LEED and/or WELL certified space and 42 ENERGY STAR Benchmarked buildings. However, given the current commercial real estate market, particularly for office owners, Lincoln understands that without a clear ROI it is impossible to get ownership buy-in on new spending.

Challenge

As utility costs continue to rise and investor appetite for high-cost structural improvements remains tenuous, both owners and tenants are increasingly concerned with keeping costs down. “Everyone benefits from keeping our expenses down: tenants, owners. Especially because utilities this year have been one of the biggest drivers of expenses,” said Staci Miller, Lincoln’s Senior Property Manager in Orange County.  But for property managers busy preparing budgets, managing leases, overseeing a team of building staff, checking in on tenants and responding to owner inquiries for multiple buildings, this can be an overwhelming prospect. 

Having a partner with the technical expertise to work closely with Lincoln’s property managers, identify cost savings, and effectively communicate these savings to owners is critical to providing the highest level of customer service. 

Gina Abbott, Lincoln’s West Coast Head of Property Management, knew her property managers needed a team of energy experts behind them and better insight into their buildings’ energy use. Utility bills weren’t offering any commentary, and cursory analytics platforms were offering property managers commentary that just wasn’t actionable.“Our property managers are client-first all day everyday. However, they aren’t all energy experts and are wearing many hats at any given time. In such a competitive marketplace we needed a platform we could rely on to help differentiate our services and deliver deep energy cost savings to cost-conscious asset managers, owners, and their tenants ,” said Abbott.

“Our goal from a portfolio perspective is to include industry best practices to reduce energy and utility costs for our clients, partners, and tenants like baseline benchmarking, tracking energy usage, and comprehensive energy management plans on an individual asset level.”

Danielle Peterson, Regional Vice President of Property Management, Northern California

Approach

Gridium provided Lincoln with full-scope energy efficiency services, from concise and actionable energy analytics to energy procurement and energy efficiency project development (leveraging zero-capex utility financing programs). Through it all, Gridium’s goal was simple: help Lincoln’s property managers find operational cost-savings opportunities that wouldn’t distract their team, and help make those opportunities easy to understand and communicate to Lincoln’s clients and their tenants. 

That simplicity began with a free trial, a no-hardware solution, and a rapid onboarding. “The onboarding was fast and easy,” recalled Staci Miller, who manages several buildings in the Anaheim area. “We handed Gridium the information, they took it and ran with it.”

 “Gridium makes our jobs as managers easier, and provides us with the data we need to  explain energy usage. They help us evaluate usage and projects and explain complex terms in ways we can understand and communicate to our owners and partners.”

Danielle Peterson, Regional Vice President of Property Management, Northern California

Montgomery Street Building, San Francisco

Built in 1940, the Montgomery Street building is a 200,000-square-foot mixed-use office and retail building with a cost-conscious owner. Gridium first helped Senior Property Manager Alan Trinh and his building engineer detect anomalous usage patterns at the building. From accidental weekend startups to running on holidays to keeping the building at temp or lit up after lease hours, Alan and his engineer were able to pinpoint waste and make simple changes to eliminate it. 

In the meantime, Gridium’s Alpha team—in-house experts focused on turnkey energy project development—went to work finding deeper savings opportunities Trinh might not have thought to look for. They entered the Montgomery Street building in PG&E’s Direct Access lottery, which allows winners to purchase their electric service directly from energy service providers for lower cost. 

“I would never have thought to look at the OBF program, let alone navigate how to apply for it and coordinate the contractors. Gridium spearheaded the project for us, took care of everything; all we did was coordinate access.”

Alan Trinh, Senior Property Manager, San Francisco Bay Area 

The Gridium Alpha team also presented Trinh and his manager with an opportunity to retrofit the whole building’s fluorescent lights at no cost. Through a PG&E program called on-bill financing (OBF), Lincoln was able to solve the split-bill incentive problem: when tenants pay utility bills, they’re incentivized to conserve energy but disincentivized to invest in efficiency upgrades; when landlords pay the bills, they’re incentivized to invest in efficiency upgrades, but tenants are disincentivized to conserve. To solve the problem, Gridium managed the installation of $200,000 in LEDs throughout the building on a low-interest loan from PG&E, which the utility will recuperate over time through monthly utility bills. But because the LEDs are so much more energy efficient, the net effect is actually a lower overall bill. Lincoln paid nothing up front, tenants pay effectively nothing in new bills, and both get a less energy-intensive building.

Source: Robert Meyer Studios

Orange Center Tower

A 324,000-square-foot Class A office building in Anaheim’s Platinum Triangle, Orange Center Tower is occupied by tenants concerned with the rising cost of their utility bills. Staci Miller, Senior Property Manager at Orange Center Tower, onboarded Gridium in June and got right to work with Lincoln’s dedicated Gridium energy analyst. 

“In the face of steadily increasing SCE demand charges, Gridium’s advanced analytical tools helped us better quantify the impact of a 4am hard start,” said Miller. “And with Gridium’s technology implemented, we were able to better quantify the risks and benefits of changing that 4am hard start.” Instead of having the HVAC come on all at once, Orange Center Tower’s engineers programmed the equipment to come on over the course of an hour, smoothing out start times. “That’s been efficient for the building and helped reduce our costs.”

In addition, Miller’s team used the Gridium platform to identify specific time windows when they could strategically reduce the usage of HVAC, without compromising tenants’ comfort and service. While the building was already highly efficient, they knew there were still opportunities to drive energy usage and costs down. Orange Center Tower primarily includes tenants that use their leased space Monday to Friday. Using Gridium’s analytics, the team identified a few opportunities to better align the building system with occupancy rates, particularly on weekends.

Source: Robert Meyer Studios

Results

The wins Lincoln has stacked up are already making their property managers’ jobs easier. At Orange Center Tower, Gridium worked with the Chief Engineer on adjusting BMS schedules to keep things off on weekends and reduced their baseload by 3.3% year-on-year. That stacked with the savings they realized from better managing energy demand through slower startups. They reduced demand charges by an average of 3.85% in the first four months after making the change, for a combined annualized savings of $38,000 on a $782,000 electricity bill. That’s a 5% bill savings for tenants and owners by working with Gridium’s team to identify potential opportunities. “Everyone at Gridium is engaged, energetic, and super excited to help us better understand the utility usage of our building,” said Miller.

Gridium has also been there for both teams come budget season. Amidst all the energy market volatility, Alan Trinh was grateful to have industry experts on his bench.  “Gridium understood the industry, answered my questions right away, and gave us a more accurate forecast,” said Trinh. As next budgeting season rolls around, the Lincoln team will lean on Gridium for improved accuracy in their forecasting.

As part of its commitment to optimizing all energy-related processes for Lincoln, Gridium also conducted a rate audit (a complimentary, annual service for all customers) across three buildings within the Lincoln-managed portfolio in Orange County. By analyzing each meter’s energy usage and comparing the current tariffs with all of Southern California Edison’s (SCE) tariff options, Gridium’s energy analysts identified that several meters were on a suboptimal tariff. Gridium then worked with the building management teams to switch to more cost-effective tariffs, resulting in savings of $75,559 since implementing the switches.

“Gridium has been a game-changer for our property teams, helping us differentiate ourselves and bring added value to our customers. With Gridium as our decarbonization partner, we have access to cutting-edge technology and expertise that makes energy management easier for our property managers and brings new value to our clients. We trust Gridium on all things energy, and we couldn’t be happier with their support.”

Gina Abbott, SVP Property Management, West Coast

With savings already stacking up, the Gridium team continues to unearth savings opportunities for Lincoln, from operational changes to utility-financed capital improvements. “Gridium’s been a critical partner to Lincoln, helping us meet our goals of best-in-class service to clients and helping clients—from investors to owners to tenants—save money when every penny is scrutinized,” said Gina Abbott, Lincoln’s West Coast Head of Property Management.

As Lincoln continues its pledge of sustainable practices across its portfolio, having a true decarbonization partner by its side helps its teams ensure its business goals are met. “Gridium empowers our teams to deliver best-in-class energy management practices and savings to their clients – all while keeping tenants happy and operations running smoothly,” said David Binswanger, Co-CEO of Lincoln Property Company. “Gridium has been quickly adopted across our portfolio, and is the partner we rely on to ensure our assets run their best.”