Joulea, a new commercial building energy assessment platform, has released insights into the energy inefficiencies and cost-saving opportunities of nine occupied commercial buildings in Atlanta through its pilot partner program. According to Joulea’s assessment, these nine ENERGY STAR-certified buildings – ranging from approximately 200,000 to 750,000 square feet and owned and operated by national asset managers and owners – can annually save a total of $2,200,000 and 19,700,000 kWh(equivalent to powering more than 1,800 homes each year). These results equate to an annual savings of more than 31%, increasing net operating income while decreasing emissions. 

 

“Many people aren’t aware that the built environment can account for approximately 40% of carbon emissions globally,” said Ramtin Motahar, CEO and founder of Joulea. “Our software helps to determine the precise energy inefficiencies of these commercial assets so we can combat the massive toll the built environment has on the world. Whether our clients are attempting to become ENERGY STAR-certified, meet government and environmental benchmarks, save on net operating costs or simply make the world a better and healthier place, Joulea’s technology helps them reach their customized goals.”

 

Ramtin adds: “Since we create a very robust energy model of each building, we can easily help with daily operational efficiency suggestions, which we call our opX Planner. Once all of the operational suggestions have been implemented towards the client’s goals, we then add the most optimal capital expenditures layout across their entire portfolio, which we call our capX Planner. This helps to further meet their portfolio’s financial and environmental goals, one building at a time.”

 

Joulea’s pilot program included a variety of office buildings from various portfolios of national asset managers and owners across metro Atlanta ranging in size, age, classification and existing certifications. Combined, these nine ENERGY STAR-certified buildings could annually save approximately $2,200,000 and 19,700,000 kWh (equivalent to powering more than 1,800 homes) by making changes such as LED lighting, envelope restoration and heating and cooling adjustments, broken down as follows:

 

For reference, an average household uses between 800 to 1,000 kWh of electricity per month, totaling approximately 9,600 to 12,000 kWh annually. 

 

Additional assessments of the building’s heat pump, roof, plug-load controls, lighting schedule and more – now possible through Joulea’s platform – can unlock further cost and energy savings. Aside from the envelope inspections through the autonomous drone flights, Joulea’s technology integrates this data with the building's inherent automation system and energy usage platforms to continuously find opportunities in real time, reacting to weather changes, occupancy and more. 

 

Joulea’s technology helps building management by uncovering and understanding the best ways to optimize daily operational performance of building systems, in order to reduce operating costs, improve air quality and comfort, stand out to attract tenants and increase the value of the building. When daily reductions from the optimization of the operational performance of building systems are not enough in order to meet their goals through the opX Planner, Joulea’s technology triggers the capX Planner to further reduce energy usage by suggesting building upgrades in order to hit energy reduction goals. 

 

Through the platform, Joulea shows that an asset manager can earn a return on investment into the platform within months instead of years. This savings is an immediate increase in net operating income.

 

Joulea’s reimagined approach allows building assets to be managed using a comprehensive user-friendly software platform. This starts with creating a digital energy twin of the building based on construction type, operation and location, as well as additional information regarding energy use and building systems data. Next, Joulea captures the building’s envelope using its industry-leading, patent-pending drone technology to autonomously fly the entire building through drone swarms. Sensor data are safely collected and added to the model, producing a highly accurate, holistic analysis of the entire integrated structure. Joulea then uses an advanced AI model to identify specific air leakages in a building's exterior to calculate, using advanced machine learning and building energy modeling, the potential cost savings to be achieved by addressing them. Finally, the opX Planner and capX Planner, with the embedded models, generates dynamic financial and ESG scenario analyses of the most optimal path towards operational and capital expenditure costs with their respective carbon emission reductions and financial payback of the improvements to help commercial building owners and asset managers understand how to improve their building. 

 

For more information on demonstrations, please visit https://www.joulea.com/or contact Joulea at [email protected].