Show Notes
Unlock Massive Energy Savings with the Remote Operations Center
In this episode of Product Snacks, hosts Melissa and Michael are joined in person by Dave Jenkins, Director of the Remote Operations Center (ROC), on his home turf in Glasgow.
Over the course of the episode they cover:
- The energy management and optimisation services Dave and his team offer learnd customers through the ROC
- The importance of visibility, technology, and expertise in saving customers energy and money
- How the ROC will start supporting demand side response efforts for customers in conjunction with learnd’s recent patent portfolio purchase, and what that means for customers and the grid
The ROC gives customers a full service team of experts, 24/7 to give customers peace of mind that their buildings are operating at their best – it’s another key element that enables learnd to bring their customers’ BMS out of the basement.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction to Remote Operation Center (ROC)
00:27 Welcome to Product Snacks
00:37 Meet Dave Jenkins
00:48 Energy Management Services at ROC
01:40 Expertise and Technology at ROC
02:30 Achieving Results for Customers
03:25 Demand Side Response Explained
04:32 Full Scale Solutions for Customers
06:02 Simplifying Implementation
07:32 Conclusion and Farewell
08:01 Bonus Blooper Footage ?
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Transcript
Product Snacks Ep.3
[00:00:00] Melissa – Head of Marketing: And then that visibility is obviously the remote operation center. The ROC has that visibility, but does the customer get it as well?
[00:00:05] Dave – Director of ROC: They do as well. Yep. So invariably we’re using their energy data to verify the delivery of the DSR commands.
[00:00:12] And therefore that’s all transparent. It’s there for everyone to see in terms of the results. And it’s also used to validate the benefit from the grid’s payment to both ourselves and the customer.
[00:00:22]
[00:00:22] Melissa – Head of Marketing: Welcome back to Product Snacks, everyone. You can see today we are live from The ROC. I’m your host, Melissa.
[00:00:35] Michael – CTO: And I’m Michael. And today we have a very special guest, Dave Jenkins, Director for Remote Operations Center.
[00:00:41] Hi, Dave.
[00:00:42] Dave – Director of ROC: Hi, Michael. Hi, Melissa. Great to be here. Thanks for the invitation. Looking forward to today’s podcast.
[00:00:47] Melissa – Head of Marketing: Thanks for inviting us out.
[00:00:48] Michael – CTO: Today, we’re diving into something that’s really going to help building owners save big, energy management and demand side response.
[00:00:55] We’ll be exploring how our energy management services that Dave over here runs can save you up to 10 to 15 percent on your energy bills and how demand side response can take that even further, turning your building into a virtual battery.
[00:01:07] Melissa – Head of Marketing: Amazing. So you’re ready to jump in Dave?
[00:01:09] Michael – CTO: Absolutely.
[00:01:09] Melissa – Head of Marketing: So Dave, we’re up here at the new ROC. It’s a brand new space, uh, to help our customers save energy even further. So can you tell us a little bit about the energy management services that you do here at the ROC?
[00:01:21] Dave – Director of ROC: Absolutely. Um, so as you’ve said, it’s all done remotely. Uh, we’ve connected to thousands of buildings with numerous amounts of data points, uh, and most importantly, control and command capability to make a difference to these buildings using that data. So doing it on scale, using the technology we’ve built, but also using the expertise that we’ve got in the ROC in order to deliver them.
[00:01:40] Melissa – Head of Marketing: Amazing. So expertise is a huge part of our business. In terms of making sure we can serve our customers. What is it about the guys in the ROC and that expertise that really helps customers get
[00:01:52] Dave – Director of ROC: that kind edge? It’s, it’s the expertise in all the different platforms and manufacturer vendor systems that we operate.
[00:01:56] Customers, can choose any type of technology to deploy. Our expertise is in how we manage that and make the building sustainable on the basis of that technology and combining it with the tools that we have in our platform.
[00:02:07] Michael – CTO: can you say a little bit more about that technology? Because, you know, you guys have the expertise, but without the right tools, it’s, it’s kind of hard to do anything.
[00:02:12] Yeah,
[00:02:12] Dave – Director of ROC: absolutely. I mean, the, the, the tools of the vendors, Michael, um, as I say, come from the vendors. What we’ve done with that in terms of our platform is allow us to disseminate that data into something that’s easy to use, easy to understand, and then allow us to make the difference in terms of actionable insights and commands back down to the actual building management systems.
[00:02:30] Melissa – Head of Marketing: so we’ve got all this expertise, we’ve got all of this different knowledge of these different tools, but how do we actually achieve results for our customers?
[00:02:38] Yeah. And what can they sort of expect to see when they work with us in the bureau? No, that’s a good question.
[00:02:42] Dave – Director of ROC: it’s not a one size fits all solution. Uh, buildings are complicated. They’re complex. what we do is. We optimize the buildings using all of the data and the command and control elements that we’re able to deploy remotely. that can sometimes be very quick returns in the region of between 10 15 percent on their overall energy savings. Sometimes it takes a bit longer. Depends on how much energy efficiency technology is deployed. But also the expertise that we can use with the actual energy efficiency techniques that we’ve got in terms of our expertise.
[00:03:11] Melissa – Head of Marketing: Very cool. So, saving customers money, saving customers energy, that’s always a bonus. Yep, that’s the
[00:03:16] Dave – Director of ROC: plan.
[00:03:16] Melissa – Head of Marketing: it kind of starts there, right? Yes. It’s using the existing equipment that they have in order to start saving them energy. Absolutely. But there’s kind of another step to it, right?
[00:03:25] There’s that aspect of That energy that they’re using and that they’re saving that can also be repurposed for these buildings kind of become batteries. But Michael, would you be able to tell us a little bit about how that actually works?
[00:03:37] Michael – CTO: Yeah, definitely. So what Dave’s talking about is reducing energy usage.
[00:03:40] So you’re using less energy and that takes a lot of expertise. That takes a lot of. tools and that’s really difficult on its own. Absolutely. But then there’s another dimension to this. So which is when you use the energy. So without using any less energy by using energy at a different time, you can benefit the grid and you think, well, that doesn’t make sense.
[00:03:57] Why should that make a difference? But if you think about it, there’s a lot of renewables on the grid. And if the wind’s not blowing, the sun’s not shining, that can be an issue because if you suddenly have lots of buildings or lots of EV chargers or whatever it is all kicking in at the same time, that’s putting a lot of stress on the grid.
[00:04:11] So if you can shift when the power is used, if you can delay your heating by half an hour, you can delay your cooling by half an hour, that can take a lot of stress off the grid. So without reducing your overall energy usage, that opens up another financial reward for customers because by participating in demand side response, they can earn a revenue because they’re benefiting the grid.
[00:04:31] Melissa – Head of Marketing: Okay, cool. So that participation obviously kind of ties in with the bureau services, but how does this whole thing kind of wrap around and create this full scale solution for the customer?
[00:04:42] Dave – Director of ROC: Well I think as Michael’s just explained, uh, we do the first initial pass, we understand what the building’s capable of, we understand what loads are non essential and essential within those buildings, and then we use those non essential loads to deploy at scale a solution that allows them to benefit in terms of the grid and the financial reward that comes from DSR. that way we keep the building sustainable, we keep well being and comfort at the forefront because that’s key to the building occupants, and at the same time we’re actually generating financial benefit and saving energy for the customers.
[00:05:13] Michael – CTO: And doing that at scale is so difficult, that’s why we need the tech to do it.
[00:05:16] Absolutely. Because if you think, you know, as Dave says, thousands of buildings, each building might have lots and lots and lots of air handling units, other HVAC loads, you multiply that out, that could be tens of thousands of loads. Like how many people would you need to go and switch all those things manually, one by one?
[00:05:31] So, That’s why we just acquired a patent portfolio, which basically protects a method to go and coordinate all those buildings, turn them into a virtual battery, so that no matter where you are in the country, if the grid needs a bit of power, we can flex those. And it’s not, you know, Dave having to hire 10, 000 people to go and do that.
[00:05:46] Dave – Director of ROC: And that, and that’s the key. that’s the power of remote services and the remote operations center working with the technology that we have in house in order to deploy on these vendor based systems. And that’s why it all works in sync and in together.
[00:05:58] Melissa – Head of Marketing: Amazing. . you know, there’s quite a lot of work that goes into it.
[00:06:01] It sounds quite complex. It maybe can sound a little bit daunting to our customers when it comes to the implementation of this. So how do we sort of make it easy? Is it like a turnkey thing that customers can kind of expect?
[00:06:15] Dave – Director of ROC: Absolutely. There’s a bit of set up work. Uh, but we demystify the complicated and complex data that we’re taking in from these buildings.
[00:06:22] That’s the first pass that I mentioned earlier, Melissa. Uh, once we’ve done that bit, the platform takes over, and it’s just a case of once we’ve got that set up, done, and making sure that we’ve tested it, and that’s the key, obviously, when we get to the point. Of deploying, for example, DSR services, we need to be sure that it’s going to return and act in the way that we expect.
[00:06:40] And once that’s done, it’s just hitting a button on the platform to deploy.
[00:06:43] Melissa – Head of Marketing: And then that visibility is obviously the remote operation center. The ROC has that visibility, but does the customer get it as well?
[00:06:49] Dave – Director of ROC: They do as well. Yep. So invariably we’re using their energy data to verify the delivery of the DSR commands. And therefore that’s all transparent. It’s there for everyone to see in terms of the results. And it’s also used to validate the benefit from the grid’s payment to both ourselves and the customer.
[00:07:05] Michael – CTO: And it’s worth saying as well that, you know, you don’t have to have a super high tech building to benefit from this.
[00:07:09] That is very true. As long as you have a BMS and you have half hourly meter data, which most buildings do, there’s always something you can do that’s going to benefit the
[00:07:17] grid.
[00:07:17] Dave – Director of ROC: Yeah. And you can start anywhere on that journey. The first bit is to get the connection, which is always the key. That opens up the floodgates in terms of the services we can offer, and then brings everything in along the line.
[00:07:28] Melissa – Head of Marketing: Step one, get the BMS for the basement.
[00:07:30] Dave – Director of ROC: Absolutely. That’s the one thing. Yep. Spot on.
[00:07:32] Melissa – Head of Marketing: Thanks for tuning in to this week’s episode of Product Snacks, and thank you, Dave, for being our first official guest.
[00:07:38] Dave – Director of ROC: Thank you, Melissa. It’s been a privilege. Really enjoyed it.
[00:07:40] Melissa – Head of Marketing: Hope you guys have learned something about The ROC and the energy services that learnd is working on, and we will be back in a few weeks, hopefully with another special guest.
[00:07:51] To talk about how learnd actually connects sites and gets things set up.
[00:07:57]
BONUS BLOOPER FOOTAGE
