Douglas Emmett Deploys Advanced Energy Analytics to Lower OpEx
Weekly feedback helps the engineering and property management team—at southern California’s biggest landlord—collaborate and fine-tune operations across 45 buildings in their portfolio
Douglas Emmett, Inc. (NYSE:DEI) is a premier provider of Class-A office properties and luxury apartment communities in Southern California and Honolulu.
| Industry | Commercial Real Estate |
|---|---|
| Property Details | 45 Class-A buildings:
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| Challenges | Aggressive OpEx savings goals require coordination and collaboration across 60+ person team. Scalable, easy-to-use tools with actionable reporting are needed. |
| Solution | Gridium energy performance analytics for automated load curve monitoring and peak demand forecasting, and utility bill management and monthly bill variance analysis. |
| Why Gridium |
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The Challenge
Robert Lutes, Senior Vice President, was looking for a cost-effective solution—with a high ROI—to add analytics, reduce energy spend, and increase energy management capabilities within the portfolio. His team had refined operations and upgraded various mechanical systems, but knew there was still money to save with the help of automated energy analytics and additional calibration.
The Solution
Gridium’s platform was deployed across 45 buildings in the portfolio, enabling Douglas Emmett to turn its SCE and LADWP electric meter data into insights about peak demand charges, anomalous use patterns, and the factors causing monthly utility bill volatility. Without needing hardware for the mechanical rooms, nor software for any BMS, Gridium’s web platform and emailed reports were quickly provisioned.
An example savings opportunity, identified by Gridium’s machine learning algorithms, was the early startup time of a building on Wilshire Blvd. (the Chief Engineer suspected the building’s electric heating was causing unnecessarily high mid-morning demand charges). Gridium flagged the issue, and its weekly load curve graph made it clear where adjustments were needed.
Gridium provides constant feedback and support of our actions as we work to reduce spend across our portfolio. Once changes are complete, Gridium’s variance analysis confirms our success and gives us the confidence and insight we need to move onto our next energy management project.