Case Study
How Utah Tech University was able to implement a full energy system with VITALITY
University
Summary
Utah Tech University was able to implement a full energy management system in 35 buildings with VITALITY.
Published
December 17, 2020
A bit of context
After an unsuccessful attempt at doing energy metering in house, Utah Tech University was looking for a solution for their energy metering needs. VITALITY offered to do a complete package with engineering & design, programming, and commissioning as well as the implementation of VITALITY, a full energy management software platform.
The Problem
After attempting to do the first phase of energy metering in-house, DSU found that they were having many issues with the implementation of their meters. They had attempted to add the meters into the building automation system and found that their current controls company was charging a lot for additional points and their software didn’t offer the energy management reports and data that they needed to reach their goal of obtaining accurate energy data for each of their buildings.
Engineering & Design
VITALITY started the second phase of the energy metering project by doing a complete audit of the University’s current metering as well their overall needs. During this phase VITALITY worked closely with DSU representatives to put together budget implementation costs per building as well as identify what buildings were deemed critical buildings and what buildings could be implemented at a later phase.
As soon as the next phase of buildings were identified and approved within DSU’s budget, VITALITY delivered a complete, for construction, set of drawings, specifications and all required bid documents. VITALITY then worked closely with the University during the bid and contractor selection process to ensure the highest quality installation to maintain a high standard of data integrity.
Services Provided
Buildings
Programming & Commissioning
VITALITY
Platform
Programming & Comissioning
After the implementation of the energy meters during the construction phase. VITALITY oversaw the programming and commissioning of the energy meters. The commissioning included verifying correct installation, placement and manufacturer guidelines for data accuracy. VITALITY programmed all of the meters to communicate back to a central data acquisition server that would be pushing all the data back to the VITALITY software platform.
VITALITY
After the implementation and commissioning of the energy metering system. VITALITY implemented our platform as DSU’s energy management software platform. This version of Vitality rests behind the DSU firewall and is collecting data from all 110 energy meters in the system.
Because of the location of some of the water meters, it became impossible for DSU to install physical meters at the source. To overcome this problem, VITALITY was able to implement VITALITY's utility bill automation feature to automatically pull water consumption data directly from the utility and import it into VITALITY, giving the University the needed water metering information needed without the added expense of installing physical meters in locations where costs wouldn’t be reasonable.
VITALITY provided us with everything we needed to implement a full energy management platform.
– Bart Peacock, Energy Manager
Impact
With the implementation of the VITALITY software platform and the successful installation of the designed metering infrastructure, Utah Tech University was able to meet their goal of having all 35 buildings and 110 meters reporting to a central energy management platform.
35
Buildings
110
Meters
100%
VITALITY Platform
