Dec. 29, 2014: FirstFuel Receives DOD Project of the Year Award for Its Energy Savings Approach
Data Analytics Enable Energy Auditing That Saves Time, Money, and Manpower
LEXINGTON, Mass. — FirstFuel Software announced that its Remote Building Assessment project with the Department of Defense (DOD) has been named Project of the Year in the Energy and Water category by the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP), the DOD’s environmental technology and demonstration program. Selected from a pool of more than 65 ongoing or recently completed energy projects, FirstFuel’s work to help the DOD enhance its mission capabilities, improve its environmental and energy performance, and reduce costs, is being honored for its innovative approach, successful execution, and impact on the commercial market.
The ESTCP chose FirstFuel to guide the DOD’s compliance with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, requiring energy audits on 25 percent of covered facilities annually. The program tasked FirstFuel with demonstrating how the company’s energy auditing capability could help to meet the mandate with its analytics-driven approach, which leverages a Remote Building Analytics (RBA) platform to rapidly and cost-effectively target, prioritize, quantify, enable, and track energy savings in less than a quarter of the time of traditional audits and using one fifth the manpower.
Using statistical methods and advanced data mining techniques, the RBA platform analyzed more than 100 DOD buildings consisting of five different building types, on 11 military installations in multiple climate zones. The resulting analysis revealed 16-37 percent more energy conservation measure savings than ASHRAE Level 2 onsite assessments conducted by an independent building auditor. By proving to yield comparable results to onsite audits at a fraction of the time and cost — and regardless of building size and type — FirstFuel is enabling the DOD to potentially save a significant amount of the $4 billion in facility energy costs annually.
“FirstFuel demonstrated a tremendous capability for the Department of Defense to use data analytics to meet it’s challenging energy auditing requirements that traditionally require much more time, money, and manpower,” said Dr. James Galvin, program manager - energy and water at ESTCP. “The company’s unique approach to data analysis enabled us to save significant time and money, while yielding the same — if not better — results than traditional onsite audits. We’re pleased to present the Project of the Year award to FirstFuel and encourage the adoption of the technology across the military services and the rest of the federal government. The forward-thinking team at FirstFuel enabled us to identify cost savings opportunities to reduce energy usage while demonstrating how to find savings opportunities with an innovative and less costly process.”
Swap Shah, CEO of FirstFuel, added, “It’s been an honor to partner with the DOD on its energy efficiency initiative. The DOD is a true thought leader when it comes to energy efficiency and we’re humbled to be recognized as a crucial part of the organization’s success driving energy performance and reducing spending. As we head into 2015, we are seeing incredible opportunity in the energy use intelligence space, and look forward to other organizations looking to the DOD as a model for improved energy management.”
For more information, visit www.firstfuel.com.
Publication date: 12/22/2014
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