Part II of Interview with Russ McMeekin of SCI: "Trying to Make the U.S. A Leader for Others To Follow"

In the second part of my three-part interview with SCI's CEO Russ McMeekin, he talks about the state of energy efficiency in the U.S., Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), and the SCIwatch.

ROBERT GLUCK:  SCI is a leading provider of energy efficiency and system optimization solutions for the US$5 billion commercial building market. What is the state of energy efficiency in the United States?

RUSS MCMEEKIN:  The short answer --not good. As members of the United States Building Council, we have access to the latests statistics at our fingertips; right now buildings represent 38.9% of U.S. primary energy use (including fuel input for production).

Buildings are one of the heaviest consumers of natural resources and account for a significant portion of the greenhouse gas emissions that affect climate change - U.S. buildings alone account for 38% of  "all" CO2 emissions and represent 72% of the entire country's electricity consumption. 

If our solutions are adopted by the mass square footage of these buildings, you'll see the numbers be dramatically impacted for the better - making the state of energy efficiency in the U.S. a leader for others to follow.

RG:  The LEED Green Building Rating System is now used in more than 8 billion square feet in 117 countries. What is your view when it comes to LEED? Should the Rating system be changed? If so, how?

RM:  LEED is a step in the right direction for improvement in the efficiency (along with various environmental concerns) of buildings. A key improvement in this process is one that makes the process more transparent and sustainable.

LEED 3.0 is another step in this direction. SCI is all about improving this transparency and sustainability. Transparency, through the exposure of real system and asset data from the facility. Sustainable, through predictive analytics that tracks performance as it continues to identify actionable anomalies in operational efficiency.

RG:  SCI won a Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Award for its ACC in 2009. On your website a PDF file explains the award and says that key industry challenges were addressed by SCIwatch.  It says: "The biggest challenge currently facing existing buildings in reducing energy usage is the lack of critical information on operating systems." What is SCI doing to address this challenge?

RM:  The SCIwatch environment imports available building system data from the facility's building automation system (BAS). This data is a rich source of information on assets and building performance. SCI supplements this data with creative techniques to extend the value of this data.

An example of such an extension of available data is the use of known data (for example a rooftop unit's supply and return air temperature) and operating conditions (the unit is at min. or max. outside air conditions) to create a data point that is needed for calculations (mixed air temperature, for example).

At a more macro perspective, SCI is promoting the interoperable integration of BAS and mechanical equipment at the controller level to extend the available data sources.