Software Platform Enables Smaller Buildings to Cut Energy Costs
Provides a plug-and-play, open-source solution
Arlington County, Virginia, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Better Buildings Challenge partner, has already made significant progress cutting its energy use — it’s down 11 percent since 2009, putting the county well on its way to a goal of 20 percent reduction by 2022. But the county realized it could do more — and do it quicker — if it had a modular solution that could optimize energy usage among multiple building devices. That’s when John Morrill, Arlington County’s energy manager, discovered BEMOSS, or the Building Energy Management Open Source Software platform, an automated building control system.
For the past two years, a team of professors and graduate students at Virginia Tech, in close consultation with industry, have been developing BEMOSS through a DOE Building Technologies Office award. The goal: make it easier for smaller building owners to use low-cost building automation or energy management systems to cut their energy costs.