Case Study
How VITALITY improved the U.S. Coast Guard's energy management system
Company
Summary
Air Station Clearwater was able to repair or replace power meters in 6 buildings, bringing their energy management system fully online.
Published
December 17, 2020
A bit of context
The US Coast Guard, like all government agencies, is attempting to establish energy consumption baselines from which they expect to be able to accurately represent the results of future energy conservation measures to their supervisors and to the American taxpayers. First stage budgets were allocated and the Clearwater Station of the US Coast Guard began to purchase meters to begin the implementation of a baseline measurement system.
The Problem
Sometime after purchasing and installing a number of those meters on their own, a number of the meters began to fail or have a number of errors in their reporting. After attempting to bring the meters back online themselves it became apparent that they lacked the expertise for managing and maintaining the metering infrastructure. They had been unable to get the meters working properly, much less reporting their measurements to a usable data collection system.
VITALITY was recommended by the hardware manufacturer to repair the metering system
As they discussed the problem with their meter vendor, the vendor commented that VITALITY had helped some of their other customers troubleshoot and repair meters and suggested that the Coast Guard give us a call. After an in-depth phone consultation, the Coast Guard asked VITALITY to visit Air Station Clearwater to bring all of their meters back online.
The Repair Process
Within a couple of hours of arriving at the station, VITALITY technicians were able to identify the problems with the existing meter installations. Because of the time since the initial installation, a number of the meters needed to be completely replaced and were no longer functional. Also, the wireless network that was used to communicate each meter back to a central Data Acquisition Server (DAS) was inadequate and not designed to provide reliable data. VITALITY's team upgraded the network and provided everything needed for a completely functioning energy metering system.
Services provided
Engineering
& Design
Programming & Commissioning
Upgraded Network
Metering Maintenance & Repair
Integrating New Designs
The Coast Guard personnel were extremely pleased with the progress that was made during that short visit and requested that we provide a design to be able to integrate their water and gas meters into the existing power metering infrastructure as well.
VITALITY was able to gather all the necessary information to provide the Coast Guard with a complete energy metering design and budget.
VITALITY’s philosophy is to utilize existing equipment within their designs whenever possible. The design specifications submitted to the Coast Guard integrate their existing meters into the overall system. As additional meters, servers, and data communications devices are added according to the plan, VITALITY’s programming and commissioning expertise will assure seamless integration of all devices within the system.
Our Holistic Approach
The installation of the VITALITY Energy Management software will bring the entire system together. Data is only a portion of a good energy management system. Through VITALITY's data analytics, we provide energy management tips and pointers to help the Coast Guard manage its data consumption and save money.
Through our years of experience, we know that our customers will not have the time to sit in front of a dashboard and look at data. VITALITY’s goal is to provide actionable intelligence to all of our customers. For this reason, VITALITY provides all of our customers with a real-life Virtual Energy Manager to review the data being provided as well as provide actionable energy savings recommendations.
Impact
After installing new meters to replace the defective ones, VITALITY was able to program and commission not only the new meters but the existing meters and wireless system to ensure data accuracy.
The Clearwater Station of the Coast Guard has committed to implement the designs we have provided and we are now in discussion with other Stations including the CO of Energy Management for the entire Coast Guard. Because of the expertise and competency we were able to demonstrate at the Clearwater Station, we anticipate a similar relationship with many more of their Stations.
6
Buildings
12
Meters
100%
VITALITY Platform
