Balfour Beatty Communities, LLC, a leading provider of property management, development and related real estate services for the multifamily, military, and student housing markets, today announced results from its home energy efficiency program that was piloted this spring in more than 3,900 military family homes under Balfour Beatty Communities’ Navy Southeast Region Military Housing Privatization Project.
Balfour Beatty Communities’ Switch4Good program combines digital coaching and smart meter data to help residents conserve energy and save on their electric bills. Data from the pilot program indicates a 16% reduction in monthly energy use from behavior change—an average monthly savings of more than $20 per home—when compared to similar homes not participating in the program. The program has been implemented in conjunction with Silicon Valley’s WattzOn, a leading cloud-based, energy management software company.
The unique combination of personalized, near real-time energy consumption data and simultaneous behavior change coaching distinguishes the program. Participating homes had access to a web portal showing personalized smart meter data (daily, hourly), supplemented by a system of multi-weekly energy savings prompts delivered to the home occupants via text message, Twitter, Facebook and other digital media. Collective energy savings were also tracked for entire neighborhoods and awards were given as the communities achieved various benchmarks.
The pilot program was launched in October 2012 by Balfour Beatty Communities, with technical support from WattzOn. Eleven Navy bases in the southeast were included in the pilot, which involved marketing the program to military housing residents serviced under Balfour Beatty Communities’ property management, conducting home energy audits, and providing technical support.
Based on a comprehensive analysis of pilot data, the program in the Navy Southeast demonstrated the following results:
- An average of 16% in monthly energy savings when compared to energy consumption of non-participating like homes in the area.
- On average, the 3,900 homes participating have collectively reduced monthly energy consumption by 90,000 kWh within a few months.
The final results of the pilot further demonstrate the value of the program in a rental environment. As part of the program, local property management teams were provided with detailed monthly reports from WattzOn which identified the high consumption homes, vacant home reports and other tools that helped the teams identify and repair meter issues, HVAC and system problems, and target their efforts to offer personalized conservation coaching for high consumers.
“The Balfour Beatty Communities’ Switch4Good program clearly demonstrates that using smart meter data to provide personalized habit cues for residents results in reduced energy consumption, without retrofits,” said Tabitha Crawford, Senior Vice President of Sustainability and Innovation, Balfour Beatty Investments. “We are encouraged by the impressive pilot results and are working to expand this program to other communities managed by Balfour Beatty Communities so that all of our residents have access to the advanced tools that will help them more actively manage their day-to-day energy consumption. With housing comprising 20-25% of a military installation’s energy consumption, this program is an important tool in supporting the sustainability goals of our Army, Navy and Air Force partners.”
Source: http://balfourbeattycommunities.com/