by Ann Withanee — August 8, 2011—The Public Buildings Authority (PBA) of Puerto Rico has awarded a contract to utiliVisor for energy monitoring services for the Aguadilla and Caguas Government Centers and Police Superintendence facility in the Hato Rey district of San Juan.
Together, the three buildings encompass approximately 595,000 square feet of space. The 59,535-square-foot Aguadilla Government Center and 124,000-square-foot Caguas Government Center house offices of the Treasury and Education departments as well as PBA administration offices. The Police Superintendence building contains 412,250 square feet. All three buildings were built in the 1970s and require energy upgrades in order to meet a mandate set by Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuño that all public agencies reduce energy consumption by at least 10 percent.
Working directly for the PBA, utiliVisor will establish what measurement and verification systems are necessary to allow the agency to evaluate energy efficiency savings achieved under a performance contract being offered by Trane Company. Trane is proposing the implementation of a series of energy conversation measures (ECMs) for the facilities, including lighting retrofits, HVAC improvements and water conservation strategies. The entire energy conservation project at the PBA buildings is being managed by Alvarez-Diaz + Group (AD+G), PSC.
Once the performance contract is implemented, utiliVisor will be responsible for reviewing data integrity for the conservation measures and will validate the measure variables on an ongoing basis. The firm will review all data collection in order to validate the monthly energy savings, and will provide the PBA with ongoing recommendations for improved operating performance of all building systems to ensure energy efficiencies are maximized.
The utiliVisor system is a Web-based, networked solution, built on open standards, that works in real time to collect and format data, monitor operations and equipment errors, and deliver oversight via Web-based alerts and alarms.
