When Air Canada started evaluating utility costs for their facilities across Canada, they made some interesting discoveries. At a single Vancouver facility, billing errors were identified and rectified, resulting in a $464,000 credit from the supplier.

Organizations often overlook the importance of tracking and analyzing their utility information and default to tracking overall costs against budget. For many, this operating cost only gets their attention when rates go up, or the budget is exceeded. Utility expenses are often viewed as a fixed cost, and to reduce this cost, energy retrofit projects are required. This article describes a process to find potential utility cost savings.

Air Canada used some simple techniques to discover the above-mentioned savings. The problem site was discovered using a process called ?benchmarking?, or comparing the energy and cost performance of similar facilities on a per unit area basis. In this case, utility costs for the Vancouver facility were much higher than similar Air Canada facilities and this prompted the properties group to take a closer look at this site.

The next step was to analyze utility billing information from past years, including electricity, gas and three water meters. This established that water use and cost was their main concern. As the facility did not have any unusual requirements demanding higher than normal water use, the meters were suspected to be faulty and they were replaced in 1997. At that point, water ?use? and cost dropped back in line with their other facilities.

Graph 1 shows monthly usage for several years before and after the meters were replaced. The plotted monthly consumption clearly shows the point when the meter was changed.

As no other significant changes in facility water processes were made, the dramatic change was confirmed to be due to erroneous meter readings from the old meters. Air Canada hired Prism Engineering to evaluate the billing and prepare a technical case for a refund of overpayments from the period the faulty meters were in place.

Prism inspected the old and new meters and arranged a calibration test. We found that one of the old meters had mismatched components with a base measuring imperial units connected to a metric readout unit. This resulted in usage being nearly 30 times overstated. A case identifying an overpayment amount was prepared and presented by Prism Engineering to the utility provider including a calculation of what past use should have been. The difference in cost between what was billed from 1993 to 1997 and the calculated use and cost was accepted by the utility company, and Air Canada was credited the over charged amount of $464,000.

If Air Canada had not done the benchmark check for utility costs, they may have never discovered the problem, as historical costs were similar for several years.

Is it possible to benefit from this technique for other facilities? Absolutely.

Prism Engineering has analyzed historical utility information for hundreds of buildings. In many cases, we have discovered opportunities for retroactive and/or future savings based on analysis of the historical information. Frequently, savings are possible with little to no cost. In addition to spotting problems with metering, the process can reveal savings potential for rate changes, elimination of penalties, estimated bills and a wide range of building operation issues. Once items are identified, the savings can often occur immediately, simply by addressing the findings with the utility company or by adjusting procedures or operating practices. On average, implementing a utility monitoring and tracking program can save approximately 5% of the utility budget.

If you would like to find out more information about utility monitoring and tracking, or if Prism Engineering can help by providing a Monitoring and Tracking service, contact Brian O?Donnell (604 205-5505) or Robert Greenwald (604 205-5500).