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Section 5.3 of DOD Instruction 4170.11 notes that the Defense Dept. occupies over 620,000 buildings on 400 installations in the U.S. alone[1]. According to DOE figures, two-thirds of all federal floor space is occupied by the DOD, raising the possibility that the DOE's own estimate of "over 500,000" total federal buildings is somewhat conservative[2]. Whatever the actual building count is, more important to this discussion is the fact that electricity accounted for nearly 75 percent of all federal energy use in 2005 — almost five times more than natural gas, the next most-used fuel type[3]. As a point of interest, Table 1 compares energy use and facility floor space by government agency:
As the nation's single largest energy user and a significant consumer in many areas of the country, the federal government is keenly aware of the need to not only conserve energy, but to invest in reduction measures that make good business sense while, at the same time, contributing to operational efficiency and modernization.
EPAct & EISA
Designed to solve growing energy problems by providing tax incentives and loan guarantees for various types of energy production, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005) was passed by Congress in July 2005 and signed into law by President Bush a month later. Section 103(e) "Energy Use Measurement and Accountability" amended Section 543 of the National Energy Conservation Policy Act (42 U.S.C. 8253) to read, as regards "Metering of Energy Use":
"By October 1, 2012, in accordance with guidelines established by the Secretary under paragraph (2), all Federal buildings shall, for the purposes of efficient use of energy and reduction in the cost of electricity used in such buildings, be metered. Each agency shall use, to the maximum extent practicable, advanced meters or advanced metering devices that provide data at least daily and that measure at least hourly consumption of electricity in the Federal buildings of the agency. Such data shall be incorporated into existing Federal energy tracking systems and made available to Federal facility managers."[4]
Other EPAct 2005 sections relative to submetering are 1251 (net metering) and 1331 (support for $1.80 per square foot tax deduction for energy-efficient buildings). Only two years after EPAct, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) raised the bar even higher by requiring that total energy use in federal buildings, relative to 2005 levels, be reduced 30 percent by 2015[5].
In response to EPAct 2005, EISA 2007 and other federal energy guidelines, E-Mon and other manufacturers have developed advanced hardware and software tools (Figure 1) that specifically address the needs of the sustainability market. Certified to ANSI C12.1 & C12.16 national accuracy standards, new-generation advanced meters like E-Mon's Green Class meter offers a number of important functions and capabilities for new construction or retrofit applications, including:
- Scrolling LCD display of kilowatt (kWh) usage;
- kWh in dollars;
- Current demand load (kW);
- Cost per hour, based on current load;
- Estimated CO2 emissions in pounds, based on DOE standards;
- Estimated hourly CO2 emissions based on current load;
- Net metering, including utility-delivered vs. user-received power and net usage;
- Compatibility with pulse-output utility meters, including water, gas, BTU, steam, etc.
