SmartBuildings CT

Project Summary

 

We work with commercial and industrial customers in Connecticut to provide information about the operation and maintenance of buildings and their systems to help building owners and operators:

  • Lower building energy usage and costs
  • Lower carbon emissions
  • Reduce water usage 
  • Improve building occupant experience
  • Upgrade building data analysis methods and technologies
  • Our work is focused on implementing systems and solutions that provide better information to decision-makers for investments, operations, and maintenance of buildings.

Support EPA’s Portfolio Manager online tool for commercial & industrial organizations in Connecticut.

    Help organizations setup EPA PM automatic data exchange in their portfolios.

    This project has supported 47 municipalities in Connecticut since 2012.

    Sustainable CT Towns We Have Supported

     

    Portfolio Manager Capabilities

     

    ENERGY STAR Certified Buildings in Connecticut as of 2021

     

    The Difference One Building Can Make

     

    Compared with their peers, an ENERGY STAR certified office building, on average:

    • Uses 35% less energy
    • Generates 35% fewer greenhouse gas emissions
    • Costs $0.54 less per square foot to operate.

     

    Portfolio-Wide Reductions

     

    Annual Energy Savings: 189 MMBTU

    • 5,632,003,354  kBtu Baseline
    • 5,443,048,948  kBtu Current
    • 3% Reduction

    Annual GHG Emissions Reductions: 26,000 MTCDE

    • 350,001 MTCDE Baseline
    • 324,001 MTCDE Current
    • 7% Reduction

     

    Connecticut Buildings in our Energy Portfolio

     

     

    Types of Buildings in Our Energy Portfolio

     

     

    Project Sponsors

     

    Hammad Chaudhry, the United Illuminating Company

    Steve Bruno, Eversource

    Investigators

     

    Amy Thompson, Ph.D.

    amy.2.thompson@uconn.edu

    Dr. Amy Thompson joined UConn in August 2017 as an Associate Professor-In-Residence of Systems Engineering and as the Associate Director of Academic Programs with the Institute of Advanced Systems Engineering (IASE) at the University of Connecticut. She currently teaches model-based systems engineering and coordinates the online graduate programs in Advanced Systems Engineering for the IASE. Prior to joining UConn, she received her BS in Industrial Engineering, MS in Manufacturing Engineering, and PhD in Industrial and Systems from the University of Rhode Island and she taught Systems Engineering to undergraduate and graduate students for six years at the University of New Haven. She also worked with an interdisciplinary team to create a BS and BA in Sustainability Studies at the University of New Haven and taught courses in design for environment and sustainability. Her current research portfolio includes the application of model-based systems engineering for the design and optimization of complex systems, model-based fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) for HVAC-R systems; design of smart manufacturing systems, facilities, and buildings; supply chain design; and undergraduate, graduate, and online systems engineering education development and assessment. Dr. Thompson is the recipient of the US EPA Environment Merit Award (2017) and the University of New Haven Faculty Excellence Award for Student Advising (2013).

     

     

    Mohammed Albayati

    Mohammed Albayati is current a doctoral student in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Connecticut and has received a Graduate Certificate in Advanced System Engineering. He is working as a graduate research assistant at the Institute for Advanced Systems Engineering (IASE) on two projects, the first sponsored by AFRL, “Model-Based Systems Engineering for Manufacturing Lifecycles” and the second sponsored by the US Department of Energy, “Bringing Fault Detection and Diagnosis (FDD) Tools into the Mainstream.” He is also part of the UConn IASE team and conducts training sessions for ENERGIZCT for EPA Portfolio Manager to help organizations better manage building energy.

     

     

    Daniel Perez

    Daniel is an honors undergraduate student at UConn looking to complete his mechanical engineering degree with a concentration in aerospace. Daniel also plans to pursue an accelerated masters degree in mechanical engineering. After college he hopes to enter the aerospace industry. He is currently a sustainability intern for SmartBuildings CT, where he works under Dr. Thompson assisting her in energy benchmarking for local governments. He will also be working as an R&D intern for ABB in their electrification department.

     

     

    Andre Jin

    Andre is an undergraduate student at UConn. He is an Electrical Engineering major and a Mathematics minor. He hopes to pursue a masters degree and a career in power systems and sustainability. He has also been a research assistant where he was responsible for writing code for mammogram images in Python and database maintenance. Andre has been an intern for SmartBuildings CT since November 2021 where he has helped benchmark towns' energy usage in Energy Star Portfolio Manager.

     

     

    Jordan Weber

    Jordan Weber is an undergraduate student at the University of Connecticut graduating in May 2021 with a Mechanical Engineering degree with an Aerospace Concentration. She has been assisting Dr. Thompson in her energy benchmarking work since 2020, and has worked with many towns throughout the state. Her internship and project experience are in the energy and aerospace fields, and she hopes to pursue a career in the aerospace industry, bringing with her the knowledge she has gained through her work with Dr. Thompson. Post-graduation she will be working at the Naval Underseas Warfare Center (NUWC) in Rhode Island, completing a rotational leadership program.

     

     

    Julia De'Oliveira

    Julia De Oliveira is a Mechanical Engineering undergraduate student at the University of Connecticut. She is pursuing a minor in Computer Science and is an undergraduate teaching assistant for the thermodynamic courses ME 2233 and ME 2234. In addition, she has been a Building Energy and Sustainability Intern at the United Technologies Corporation Institute for Advanced Systems Engineering since July 2020. She has helped over 20 towns in Connecticut benchmark their energy use using ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. Julia has also been contributing to the US Department of Energy project, “Bringing Fault Detection and Diagnosis (FDD) Tools into the Mainstream,” since August 2020 focusing on the market and process evaluation of FDD tools.