
It may be a small state, but Maryland still represents a lot of territory with a complex governmental energy infrastructure involving 124 utility vendors, 58 state agencies, and over 120 Accounts Payable offices. With a decentralized bill pay process, just getting a handle on the state government’s energy use and cost is a challenge. The EmPOWER Maryland Energy Efficiency Act of 2008 sets per capita targets for reducing state electricity use. Using a 2007 baseline, the Act requires a 15 percent reduction in electricity use and peak demand by the year 2015. Seeking to lead by example, the state government is on track to meet that goal internally, thanks to interdepartmental communication, competition, and the collaboration of a third party utility bill auditing and analysis team.
The EmPOWER Maryland Energy Efficiency Act of 2008, signed by Governor Martin O’Malley, was a statewide progressive call to action on climate change and energy efficiency. By setting the goal of a 15 percent per capita reduction in electricity use and demand by the target year of 2015, and by placing the burden of compliance on the shoulders of electric utilities, the state government committed itself to energy measurement, monitoring, and management. As Governor O’Malley is fond of saying, “The things that get measured are the things that get done.”
The challenge presented by the legislated energy reduction goal was two-fold: how to get the data necessary to evaluate progress toward achieving the energy reduction goal, and how to incentivize energy stakeholders to develop and implement the necessary programs and processes.
The Maryland Energy Administration (MEA) has been instrumental in developing and funding energy efficiency initiatives across the state. The MEA mission and outreach is broad and deep, including oversight and review of the performance and plans of the state’s electric utilities.
But internally, the state government has another organizational tool to address its energy management issues and to meet Governor O’Malley’s challenge to lead by example—the Department of General Services (DGS) Office of Energy Performance and Conservation (“Energy Office” for short).
The DGS Energy Office coordinates a number of tasks relating to the State’s energy initiatives including:
In 2008, the year that the Maryland legislature passed the EmPOWER Maryland Act, the State acquired EnergyCAP energy management software (also referred to as the State Energy Database) through a competitive solicitation.
DGS Secretary Alvin Collins says holding state government accountable is key to making significant progress: “The State Energy Database gives us a clearer picture of where energy improvements need to be made and allows us to identify where energy and taxpayer dollars are being saved. It’s a very effective tool in helping achieve Governor O’Malley’s aggressive climate and energy goals.”
One of those tasks was to increase energy awareness among state employees, and to motivate them to conserve. Beginning in 2011, StateStat, Maryland’s Open Data portal, helped to establish an energy/electricity reduction competition between State agencies, whereby each agency’s consumption of electricity and total energy from “significant facilities” is being monitored and compared to the FY08 baseline. Significant facilities are those that have been occupied by the State since 2008 and are air-conditioned. The annual monitoring period for the competition is the previous fiscal year (FY 2013 is July 2012–June 2013) and the overall reduction goal from the 2008 start date is 15% by 2015. Not only did the competition motivate departmental employees directly involved, but it served as an example to other agencies and the general public when the Department of General Services took the competition online on its website. In February of 2014, Governor O’Malley joined DGS Secretary Collins in presenting the first-ever Maryland Energy CUP Awards to the overall winner of the 16-agency competition. He also recognized other agencies achieving significant energy efficiency milestones. By publicly recognizing the top energy performers, the governor and staff hope to encourage State agencies to build on the progress being made.
DGS manages the utility data that drives the competition. Soontornsaratool uses the Groups and Benchmarking feature in EnergyCAP to monitor competition progress: “In order to see where each agency stands, we look at performance in 2008 baseline year and then compare the latest fiscal year to that to see the percentage of reduction.”
Soontornsaratool continued: “The Group is a way for us to put those facilities that each agency is competing in one place and use that as a filter. For example, if I want the total MMBTU for DGS for FY13 for the competing facilities, I can run an AN02 [analysis] report and filter it with the group DGS-competition. I then do the comparison with 2008 numbers to arrive at the reduction as a percentage. The database was extremely helpful in those calculations.”
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