Straying from the operational straight and narrow is wasteful and costly - and typically hidden. Those are the conclusions of a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council entitled Real-Time Energy Management: A Case Study of Three Large Commercial Buildings in Washington, D.C. The study analyzes a 12-month energy initiative undertaken at office buildings owned by the Tower Companies. The buildings ranged in size from 110,000 to 333,000 square feet. A key part of the initiative was detecting and correcting "operational stray" - i.e. when good buildings go bad. Energy meters and best practices in monitoring were implemented; alarms were also installed to alert operators when systems strayed beyond parameters. Focusing only on operational improvements, the program did not involve installing new efficiency equipment. Moreover, the researchers did not choose buildings that were energy hogs in order to push an agenda - the buildings had ENERGY STAR scores of 71, 78 and 81 before the program began.
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