Levelling up on building optimisation; introducing our ROC division
Our new Remote Optimisation Centre (ROC) has brought sought-after building optimisation services to Kendra. The result? Smarter, outcome-led solutions that will help customers save more, improve building performance and get more from their assets, year after year.
The problem our ROC was designed to solve
No matter how well a building is designed or commissioned, buildings degrade over time. Not because anyone’s done anything wrong, but because buildings are constantly changing.
A heating schedule gets adjusted for an out-of-hours event and never gets changed back. Someone on the east side of the building ramps the setpoint up, while someone on the west side turns it down. You eventually end up with opposing heating and cooling demands that are working against each other. Or perhaps, to maintain temperature in the building, an engineer manually overrides a boiler late on a Friday afternoon and then it’s left for a week or more. None of this is unusual. It’s simply what happens over the life cycle of an operational building.
The problem is, every small change slowly decays the building’s optimal performance. Equipment ends up working harder than it needs to, while energy consumption and operating costs creep up. A building that once cost £1 million a year to run might now cost £1.3 million, and that’s before you’ve factored in rising energy prices.
Eventually, finance asks engineering why the energy bill has gone up and it kicks the building operators into action. Schedules are corrected, setpoints are adjusted and specialist contractors are brought in to make changes accordingly. Once the building has been optimised (for the time being), the team celebrate their wins, report their savings and move on.
But then the cycle repeats itself. Efficiency gradually drifts and, over time, the baseline drops. Because every time the building gets re-optimised, it rarely returns to the same level of efficiency it was before. That’s because it’s only being optimised for this point in time, rather than receiving ongoing optimisation as part of a continuous process.
Breaking the ‘degrading buildings’ cycle
Breaking the cycle is crucial for any business looking to achieve truly efficient, high performance buildings. And that’s precisely what our Remote Optimisation Centre (ROC) is here to do.
Like Kendra’s PROActiv Analytics solution, the ROC keeps buildings performing at their best through continuous monitoring and optimisation, adjusting to suit the building’s needs. While the two offerings share similarities, they each have unique strengths. To combine the best of both, a service refresh is on the cards (so watch this space for even smarter client offerings!).
Building optimisation; more than traditional BEMS
At Kendra, we’ve always offered a comprehensive service, from Building Energy Management System (BEMS) installations and upgrades to maintenance contracts and our PROActiv energy and analytics offerings.
Our newly acquired ROC team doesn’t replace Kendra’s existing services, it strengthens them. The team not only work continuously to prevent buildings from degrading over time but to maximise the building’s efficiency through advanced remote managing capabilities.
Unlike many other BEMS Bureau services, which are primarily built around alarms and work orders, our ROC proposition was created differently from the outset. The team wasn’t set up to purely be a BEMS integrator, despite excelling in this field. Its sole purpose was to optimise buildings, deliver higher performing buildings and achieve an ROI of 6-12 months. All while remaining laser focused on delivering client business objectives and goals.
We’re not simply offering an alarm management service. We’re delivering business outcomes.
Our ROC Divisional Director, Gary Bark, said “We don’t measure success by how many tickets we close. We measure success by the business outcomes we deliver.” And that’s how the team operates.
If a customer wants to reduce energy costs, that’s the primary focus. But if the customer wants to improve occupant comfort, extend asset life or reduce engineer callouts, all the team’s decisions will be driven by that end goal. In many cases, we help customers achieve all these business goals, rather than a single objective. All while cutting their carbon emissions.
That’s because our ROC services are supported by a range of ‘wrap-around’ specialist technologies. This includes alarm management, energy analytics, BEMS analytics, ticket and work order management, enterprise dashboards, CAFM integrations and compatibility with multiple BEMS systems and platforms.
But technology is only part of the story. Gary Bark said “we believe successful optimisation comes from combining our broad technology offering with talented, experienced engineering and proven processes. When combining all these areas, we’re able to successfully serve one purpose: to hit customer objectives and deliver fantastic results”.
Going after the biggest building optimisation opportunity
In a typical commercial building, roughly 40% of all energy use is consumed by heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC). Of that 40%, around 25% is wasted and that’s the sweet spot our ROC team go after.
Through continuous optimisation works alone, the team typically reduce energy consumption by between 8% and 15% per annum. If we take a standard 10% saving and apply that to a building that spends £1 million on energy per year, it would save £100,000.
Once you take the cost of our ROC service into account, the customer will see a full return on investment (ROI) within a year, but it can be much sooner, depending on the building. We’ve seen results that pay for this service within just a few weeks.
Four specialist teams. One shared objective
Our ROC division is made up of four dedicated teams that work together to keep buildings performing at their best:
- Reactive Team: responds to alarms, emails, work orders and customer calls.
- The Proactive Team: looks at what’s changed. If one building suddenly starts using more energy than another, they investigate the root cause and quickly intervene.
- The Energy Team: analyses half-hourly energy data, identifying trends and opportunities for further savings.
- The Triage Team: coordinates more complex issues, ensuring the right expertise is brought in whenever it’s needed, including on-site reactive response if required.
A service that fits every building
Not every customer needs the same level of support, which is why the ROC is available through three annual managed services.
- Maintain: provides continuous monitoring and proactive support.
- Insight: adds deeper analytics and reporting, helping customers understand how their buildings are performing.
- Control: delivers the highest level of optimisation and the greatest opportunity for long-term savings.
Alongside these services, it offers a one-off optimisation service named Performance. This gets a building’s control strategies working based upon how the building is currently being used, not how it was necessarily designed. Once the foundations are in place, the ROC takes over.
Stronger together: how this will benefit you – our customers
Bringing the ROC division onboard means Kendra customers can benefit from a stronger service offering. By taking advantage of our ROC division’s expertise in building optimisation and outcome-led, managed services, you’ll get:
- Higher annual savings, with cost saving opportunities swiftly identified.
- Continuous, remote, real-time optimisation, backed by responsive on-site engineering support. Giving you peace of mind that any inefficiencies or faults will quickly be rectified.
- Help cutting carbon emissions and hitting net zero goals.
- A high performing building (or building portfolio) that won’t degrade over time.
- Extended lifespan of your building assets.
- Sought-after ROC expertise and services, in addition to an offering that was already comprehensive.
- A complete BEMS solution that doesn’t just maintain buildings, it helps them perform better year after year.
- A partner whose whole business model was built around hitting your objectives and getting the best from your building, using the most effective methods on the market.
- Fast, nationwide support, regardless of where you’re based, whether this is the UK or internationally.
Want to know more about our ROC team?
If you’d like to speak to one of our experts, email info@kendraenergy.co.uk or contact your local office.
