Success Stories From the (Energy Management) Front

Success is commonly defined as “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.”

When setting about to purchase an energy management information system (EMIS), the publicly stated purpose is commonly to reduce energy consumption. It’s a realistic, positive aim and an objective that typically garners internal and external support. That said, what ultimately “sells” the EMIS project is cost savings.
Fortunately, cost savings go hand-in-hand with lower energy consumption. But that’s only part of the story. A capable EMIS that is properly implemented provides benefits far beyond consistently lower utility bills, such as labor savings, streamlined processes, enhanced data sharing/integration, and technology-driven productivity gains. The County of Riverside, CA, is a great example.

With cutting edge leadership from the County Board of Supervisors and Rob Field, Director of the Economic Development Agency (EDA) for the County of Riverside, the Energy Division of EDA completed its EnergyCAP implementation approximately five years ago, replacing a legacy system with less functionality that was no longer being updated.

County Energy Manager Janet Purchase recognized the potential cost savings from streamlining the county’s utility bill processing workflow and worked diligently to make the EnergyCAP EMIS a key component of the county’s utility bill accounting process. The EnergyCAP implementation project included multiple efficiency-producing components:

Action Taken and Realized Cost Savings

Established electronic billing with four high-volume utility vendors: $25,250/year
To-date savings from utility bill auditing and correction: $336,697
Utility vendor incentives for EMIS implementation: $47,957

This level of success would not have been possible without the exceptional working relationship between the Energy Division and the Accounting & Finance Division. With 54 utility service providers serving the county, the team approach to implementing features and new services from EnergyCAP has contributed greatly to their success.

Riverside County expects to further increase its cost savings in 2017 by subscribing to EnergyCAP’s Bill CAPture™ bill processing service for their non-EDI 810 invoices. With Bill CAPture, the county anticipates its bill processing cost will decrease by approximately $3.50 per invoice, providing an additional annual cost savings of more than $45,000.

The savings are impressive, and they’re in addition to the environmental benefits realized from reduced energy consumption across the 10th largest county in the nation with more than 2.2 million residents.

Does your organization have a similar story to tell? If yes, provide a comment for us and our readers. We would love to hear from you and perhaps help tell YOUR story in a future blog!

If you’d like to learn more about energy management success, download our 10 Tactics of Successful Energy Managers eBook.