The Evolving Landscape of Energy Management in Buildings with Trilliant’s Steven Lupo: AMI, EV Charging, DERs & Beyond Metering

By Blake Marchand

“There is increasing attention being paid to the importance of energy management as a whole in today’s buildings,” explained Lupo. “The load share of buildings on the grid is growing, thanks to the intensification of housing, resulting in a larger and larger footprint of the overall management of an electricity grid.”

With that growing demand, there is a desire among utilities to extend solutions into buildings that they typically offer only to homeowners. “There are challenges to that,” Lupo noted, “like access issues, since there are various things that are quite different about servicing a multi-level building versus your typical homes. That’s a change management piece … a transformation piece … where we are uniquely positioned to assist utilities, municipalities, and sub-metering companies.”

The technology that Trilliant offers, sub-metering and AMI (advanced metering infrastructure), is really the first step in enabling this kind of dynamic energy management. The base benefit to building owners, condo owners, renters, and tenants is a more complete view of energy consumption, and billing for the energy consumed rather than billing based on square footage/flat rate.

That enables benefits such as integration of EV charging infrastructure, renewable generation and storage, connected buildings, and ultimately, as more buildings integrate smart building/energy management solutions with DERs, a more connected city.

Smart Buildings: Retrofits and New Builds

How partnerships like those with Oshawa Power and Milton Hydro work in practice

“These are truly strategic partnerships in that we enable our customer’s success.

In its simplest form, we provide solutions and services to enable AMI in buildings. This means utilities and submetering companies would acquire customers where they previously may not have done so. So, there is a new customer acquisition and new revenue component to this, enabled through technology, but also conservation and new programs as extensions of AMI.

This is a new space for many of our customers – Oshawa and Milton being the latest examples – who want expertise to help design and deliver a solution that works.”

The buildings they are working with might be a two- or three-level townhouse complex or a high-rise. But as Lupo explained, “the technology solution for either of those looks very, very different.”

“Trilliant has a lot of expertise around both new construction and retrofit. We’ve pretty much done it all and seen it all when it comes to those two major scenarios, so we’re uniquely positioned to manage that as a full turnkey offering to these utilities. We make it very easy, ensuring that things are done with quality but also with safety in mind, particularly in the retrofit environment where there could be portions of these buildings that are still inhabited while we’re working in them.”

Major cities across Canada are the obvious landscape for Trilliant’s solutions, but more and more Lupo is seeing interest from outlying areas that are starting to grow vertically.

“If you drive into Oshawa, for example, you’ll see any number of cranes and a lot of high-rise construction happening. That’s part of the urban intensification initiative to build more housing, and it’s a similar story in Milton. In fact, it’s happening across Canada because there is so much interest in this right now.”

What is the approach to retrofits?

“There’s a standard approach for retrofits and a standard approach for new construction. New construction is a bit more straightforward.

Where we find the greatest challenge is when the common area component of these new facilities is 50 per cent or more of the planned load.

That’s an interesting case because typically it used to be in the 20 or 30 per cent range, even when there were swimming pools or gymnasiums that were part of the building’s construction. But now we’re seeing up to 50 per cent or even higher.”

More and more residential buildings are becoming like vertical subdivisions that include extensive common areas, mini-supermarkets, restaurants and shopping areas. Meaning, as Lupo said, common areas can sometimes take up half or more of the electrical load.

“That is leading to a much more complicated infrastructure. These are like mini cities, vertically, especially when you see the towers that are connected at the bottom with an atrium that has a huge commercial element. It becomes much more intricate, and we really enjoy those projects because they’re nice challenges for us.  With these huge commercial loads, it is critical to ensure that everyone pays their fair share and that allocation is 100% correct.

The most important thing (part of the services Trilliant provides for existing sub-metering and utility customers, as well) is commissioning that building and knowing that the reconciliation of what we are sub-metering is correct.

We continue to hear from our customers that some of the work with previous contractors was not done properly and they needed us to fix them. So Trilliant also plays a part in remediation and fixing areas where others may not have reconciled very well or were not originally commissioned, which can lead to significant problems. If you think about a building, it’s not immediately tangible. Where are the wires? Where is the infrastructure that is supporting this supermarket versus a suite on the 9^th floor?

What’s needed are expert technicians to scope and trace things properly and make sure that everything is metering correctly. If it’s not done correctly, the costs can be very high.”

Do you use contractors or in-house employees?

“Both, depending on the need. We have a meter shop contingent that is device-centric across thermal, water, and electric metering  — and regulated by Measurement Canada — and that workforce extends into the field with approved labour. We also have a few close partners that we utilize, and virtually all electrical contractors in Canada are aware of Trilliant’s solutions or have been trained on them in this space.”

Where outside electrical contractors are being used for installations, Lupo noted, “We take on a project management role. We design but they install per our specifications, and we supervise and ensure overall quality control and are 100% responsible for the finished product.”

Beyond Metering: EV Charging, DERs, Microgrids

Is there anything else you want to touch on with respect to working in buildings when it comes to challenges or problems you are able to solve with your technologies?

“One interesting area is the story beyond metering — some forms of sub-metering applications as we’re doing for Milton and Oshawa. What’s interesting is when we deploy our technologies, they are capable of doing so much more.

Metering data is miniscule versus what we think about as contemporary broadband type solutions. That leaves a lot on the table in terms of the opportunity to leverage the infrastructure to do more.

Now that we have an energy management solution in place, there’s a great monitoring aspect. We can equip the property management to better manage these buildings, that means the suite owners or renters are empowered with information.

There is additional interest now in the world of distributed energy resources, and I believe it is a very good thing.

When we think of buildings, we don’t traditionally think about energy storage or even rooftop solar, because typically there isn’t that much real estate on the roof. But this is becoming a hot topic these days. In fact, Trilliant is going to be doing a pilot around EV charging where our sub-metering technology is currently used today to monitor EV chargers.

Extending beyond just metering and moving into the world of microgrids — where you have elements of storage generation and then utilizing it in a way that is most — is very interesting for demand-planning reasons.”

Lupo noted that he is seeing significant interest in DER solutions, “I would say 8 out of 10 meetings we have with current or prospective customers where we’re talking about our base solutions – which are sub-metering or traditional advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) of some sort – venture into the world of EV storage and generation. This was never part of the discussion even five years ago, and it certainly wasn’t 10 years ago.”

Lupo explained that from his vantage point he is seeing an evolving landscape where utilities have the ability to transition from electricity distribution companies to providing more comprehensive energy management.

“We’re seeing a very prominent shift and it’s quite exciting because the technology is there. So much is happening, particularly in storage, where there are a lot of options available and its integration has never been easier from a technology perspective.

When we think about sub-metering as a platform that manages energy in a facility, it’s actually quite easy to bring in energy storage and have a more complete view of what’s happening at that facility. If you do that across multiple facilities, you now start to cover parts of a city. It provides a truly unique, comprehensive energy picture.

We have a great deal of granular data in the world of energy management today; but having a more holistic view, and what it could lead to, is truly quite exciting. Late last year, we introduced an Analytics as a Service offering that enables utilities to further leverage data by providing deeper insights and understanding of that data.”

How critical is the storage solution piece when it comes to Buildings and DERs?

Lupo made it clear that supplementing natural gas generation with solar and storage has become a viable option.

“There’s been some recent news about the cost of solar and storage coming down. We’re getting to the point where there isn’t a debate about its economic viability — it’s simply a matter of adoption, and I like that.  This isn’t necessarily about replacing fossil fuels, but augmenting and decentralizing the reliance.  This absolutely leads to a more dynamic, resilient grid.

The energy transition will be a distributed solution, not the typical waterfall that we are used to from decades ago. That was an approach where massive generation plants were built and segregated out and transmission lines with tons of losses delivered all that energy across thousands of kilometers. 

We’re seeing distributed solutions now, and that’s really cool.”

Lupo noted they are currently working with a customer in a microgrid scenario, and they will be making an announcement on the partnership in the coming months.

From Wires & Poles to Energy Management

How Advancing Technology is Reshaping the Customer/End-User Dynamic

As Lupo discussed previously, once they establish the base level of what a customer wants to do with their technology, the discussion naturally leads to other ways it can be utilized, and what other solutions, products, or services they can provide.

In response to that, Trilliant is seeing the adoption of deregulated affiliates by utilities. A few utilities have established deregulated affiliates in recent years and, as Lupo notes, “it’s an investment made by the city or town and enabled by the electrical utility that has skills, trained workforces, trucks with buckets on them, and capabilities to do, honestly, much more than just manage the electricity grid.”

Utilities already have the expertise and internal resources to effectively pivot towards energy management. That means they can take full advantage of the technology that is available to establish a decentralized energy model that complements existing utility infrastructure.  

“Deregulated affiliates are very good vehicles to do much more than just the regulated aspects of their jobs. They’ve got warehousing. They’ve got all the logistics skills. They’ve got a lot to offer. There’s a there’s a lot of interest, and we’re going to continue to see electrical distributors creating deregulated affiliates.

Not only are they uniquely positioned to do so – in fact, they are almost compelled to do so because there’s a bit of concern in the air around maintaining relevance in the new energy economy.”

In some of the discussions Lupo has had with utility executives he has noted a recognition that utilities need to transform from wires and poles to true energy management companies. And he recognizes that, for a large utility, that is a big undertaking.

He explained that technology vendors will look to play a larger role in energy management and home automation.

Google Nest, for example, can control your HVAC in concert with utility programs today. Google can house your heating/cooling control, smart lighting, smart outlets, and various other connected products and appliances from different manufacturers – all from a single app.  It is notable that this technology is working today, utilizing the internet and not reliant upon any specialized/overly complicated technology to do so. 

“There’s more and more connectivity happening in the home, and I believe electrical utilities want to make sure they play a part beyond just sending a bill for consumption after the fact.”

As Lupo noted, utilities are uniquely positioned to transition their model into one that can get the most out of the technologies that are currently available, and economically viable.