How do the smartest and most sophisticated smart building owners implement smart building technologies?
A new report from IDC Energy Insights shows what the “thrivers” are doing right, said Jill Feblowitz, vice president, IDC Energy Insights in this podcast.
“IDC‘s Smart Building MaturityScape Benchmark Survey is a fact-based review of how mature U.S. organizations currently are with respect to smart building technologies. By highlighting and understanding the differences between organizations that are simply surviving and those that are thriving, we are able to identify the key factors that can help a company become more highly optimized,” she says.
The report categorizes smart building owners on a spectrum ranging from ad hoc (not very sophisticated) to optimized.
“Companies that take this approach seriously have gone in whole hog,” says Feblowitz of the “optimized” group.
The most mature organizations — the “optimized” group — deploy advanced technologies across the board, including distributed energy, analytics, HVAC, lighting controls and plug load controls.
“The smart buildings technologies with the greatest payback differ considerably depending on facility type and hours of use,” she says.
The building owners that use distributed energy resources generate onsite, using solar, wind, gas-fired and other types of generation, she says in the podcast. They are likely to power their own buildings and in some cases sell back to the grid.
All of the building owners that focus on distributed energy fell into the “optimized” category, she says.
The smart building owners who achieve the most benefits are able to identify the needed smart building skills and expertise and are able to manage and develop in-house resources.
“From a process standpoint, they use a broad array of sustainability metrics, develop a centralized training process, and look at a three- to five-year planning horizon to support the adoption of technologies,” she says. “They access a broad array of data, developed standardized reports and were able to analyze and collect data to identify trends and issues.”
Find the report here
