Creighton University Success Story

Creighton University - Monitoring is a Learning Experience

With energy headlining the news, a lot of organizations are getting serious about energy management. None is more serious than Creighton University, which has a campus that covers 94 acres, 2.5 million foot of building space and an enrollment of more than 6,000 students. While most organizations have one building in which to monitor energy usage, the Creighton campus has 59 buildings with expansion plans on the drawing board -- a big challenge when measuring energy consumption.

A higher-education campus spends an estimated 30 to 50 percent of its facilities management budget on energy costs, according to energy experts. If a university can reduce these costs, the savings can go toward the bottom line or be used on academic endeavors. Creighton's energy experts think that their energy conservation efforts will, over time, yield a 15 percent reduction in energy consumption.

One step Creighton took on the road to maximizing its energy efficiency was to install an eLutions energy monitoring system that will connect many of the campus' facilities -- 28 buildings and 42 metering points in all. This is a major operation, considering that most organizations install only one or two metering points. Besides electricity, the OPPD software system also will monitor steam and chilled water usage at some locations.

The eLutions system will help Creighton target areas that should be considered for conservation measures. This will help the university develop demand-side management strategies to reduce energy consumption and to take advantage of the electrical rates made available from OPPD. This software can help Creighton get a better idea of how energy is being used in each of its buildings, and how it can improve that energy usage. It will help the staff control costs by looking closely at how each building operates.

Customers using the eLutions system can benefit and reduce their energy costs by:

• Tracking energy usage, historical or real time
• Analyzing energy consumption and demand
• Estimating monthly billings
• Allocating energy costs to specific areas or sites
• Evaluating the efficiency of energy equipment
• Identifying concerns in equipment functionality
• Monitoring and controlling processes from a remote site
• Identifying peak demands
• Taking advantage of time-of-use rates
• Finding opportunities for future savings

OPPD partners with eLutions Inc. of Tampa, Fla., an international energy information management company, to offer the computerized energy monitoring program to its customers.

Contact:

Please call (402) 636-3594 or e-mail Jinrong Wang at jwang@oppd.com