The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Chicago Regional Office successfully manages energy consumption and carbon emissions on a built-to-suit 11-story facility leased to the United States General Services Administration (GSA) and managed by USAA Real Estate Company.

Business Challenge
Buildings in the United States are responsible for 39 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, 40 percent of energy consumption, 13 percent of water consumption, and 15 percent of gross domestic product per year. Sustainable (or “green”) buildings are a source of significant economic and environmental opportunity and growth. Greater building efficiency can meet 85 percent of future U.S. demand for energy, and a national commitment to green buildings has the potential to generate 2.5 million jobs in the United States.

USAA Real Estate Company (“USAA RealCo”) is committed to energy efficiency and sustainability throughout its over US$5 billion portfolio of public and private sector properties. USAA RealCo seeks to join with a building’s tenant in a team effort to improve efficiency and reduce the environmental impact, an effort driven ultimately by the desire to maximize occupant comfort and improve financial performance.

With these objectives in mind, USAA RealCo, in cooperation with the FBI and the GSA, agreed to seek the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification (the highest level of certification) for the FBI Chicago Regional Office located just west of Chicago’s business district. Under the Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance (EBOM) category for LEED, the FBI building was evaluated for its best practices and use of energy, water, and natural resources, as well as for the efforts of the building’s operating team to improve the indoor environment and uncover operating inefficiencies. Developed by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing independent, third-party verification that a building project meets the highest green building and performance measures.

The certification is based on five different categories, including indoor environmental quality, sustainable sites, water efficiency, as well as energy and atmosphere. Along with LEED certifications, USAA RealCo recognized that an important certification also to be earned was the Energy Star label, and as such, developed and implemented a plan to optimize the FBI building’s energy performance.

To secure as many points as possible within these programs, USAA RealCo developed and implemented an ongoing building commissioning plan, whereby:

• All of the building’s equipment would be programmed to run at highest efficiency; and,
• An enterprise energy management capability would be introduced to track and analyze energy consumption data to help ensure that the equipment continued operating at its highest efficiency.

To implement an enterprise energy management capability, USAA RealCo sub-metered the major energy systems, including the highest energy users, such as heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment. This capability allows the building operations team to understand what equipment is using the most electricity, at what times, and under what conditions. Because the FBI building was already a highly efficient building with an Energy Star score of 78 (out of 100) after its first 12 months of operation, the building management team recognized the challenge that it faced in significantly reducing energy consumption while maintaining high levels of tenant comfort and satisfaction.

USAA RealCo turned to Cisco for a solution that would collect energy consumption data from the building’s newly installed sub-meters, and communicate that data to the building’s enterprise energy management platform in order to help ensure the optimization of the FBI building’s energy use. USAA RealCo also turned to EFT Energy, Inc. for its web-based energy management platform software for data analysis and reporting.

Network Solution
In 2008, the Cisco® Network Building Mediator (Mediator) was deployed to collect and communicate data from its 18 newly installed sub-meters and 8 virtual sub-meters to its enterprise energy management platform by using the IP-based network as the platform.

The Cisco Network Building Mediator extends the network as a platform to transform the way buildings are built, operated, and experienced to reduce energy usage and foster sustainable energy usage. The Mediator provides flexible integration of new technologies that deliver energy efficiency, promote clean energy, and support processes for environmental stewardship.

The Mediator collects data from the building, IT, energy supply, and energy demand systems, which use different protocols and are otherwise unable to communicate. It then normalizes the data into common formats, such as HTML, Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), or XML-remote procedure call (RPC). Using the Mediator’s network-based framework creates a common, standards-based, open platform for applications and cloud services, enabling disparate building/IT systems to communicate. The Cisco Mediator is the industry’s first solution that extends the network as a platform that serves as an effective foundation for sustainability management.

Since deployment, the Cisco Mediator enabled the FBI building’s engineering team to collect energy consumption data in real-time, and communicate that same data to the building’s EFT Energy Manager as an enterprise energy management solution for analysis and reporting.

Business Results
Through its own efforts, and with the support of GSA, the leadership and participation of the FBI, and the assistance of Cisco and EFT Energy as participating vendors, USAA RealCo succeeded in its objective. On December 22, 2008, the building was awarded USGBC’s first LEED EBOM Platinum certification in the world.

In the process, USAA RealCo demonstrated that by using tools such as the Cisco Network Building Mediator and EFT Energy Manager, the FBI building could better manage energy consumption to increase efficiency and lower energy use. For example, there was no need to wait 30 days for the power bill to arrive to see results. If any system was working harder than it should, the building tweaked it and saw the change almost immediately. Equipment operation schedules were tweaked to better reflect building occupancy. It also created new staggered start-time schedules, adjusted boiler programming for after-hours and weekends, and changed the sequencing of the cooling system with the existing 12- and 24-hour systems. Overall, operating efficiency was effectively measured and improved, and environmental impacts were minimized. These results translated to lower energy costs, as well as a better place to work.

“Organizations in the public and private sector are increasingly realizing the transformational power that technology can play to have an impact on the world’s environmental challenges. Developing more environmentally-friendly products is a requirement of any socially responsible business,” said Patrick Finn, vice president for Cisco U.S. federal business. “Anything connected to the Internet can be made more intelligent and efficient, thereby reducing carbon emissions and creating energy savings. The network becomes the platform to transform the way buildings are built, operated, and serve as an effective foundation for sustainability management.” In the LEED “Energy and Atmosphere” category, the building achieved 25 points out of 30 points, and succeeded in increasing its Energy Star rating from a highly efficient score of 78 to an exceptional score of 95 (out of 100) thereby indicating that the project is operating in the top five percent of the market in terms of energy efficiency. By developing and implementing a building commissioning plan that included real-time data monitoring and analysis, USAA RealCo not only achieved its immediate business objective, but also established the infrastructure that will permit an ongoing commissioning process to assure that the facility continues maximizing its energy efficiency and minimizing carbon emissions long into the future.

For More Information
To find out more about Cisco Mediator Series, go to:
http://www.cisco.com/go/mediator.

To find out more about Cisco Connected Real Estate for government, go to:
http://www.cisco.com/go/govcre.

To find out more about USAA Real Estate Company, go to:
http://www.usrealco.com.