S M T W T F S

10 Tactics
Successful
OF

ENERGY
MANAGERS
This eBook discusses the role of the
energy manager in an organization,
and provides 10 guidelines (10 Tactics)
for enhancing energy management
effectiveness. It is intended for use by
energy management professionals and
other energy stakeholders seeking to
implement positive organizational change.
Table of Contents
1 Purpose of this eBook
1 Table of Contents
2 The Energy Manager’s Dilemma
3 10 Tactics
4 TACTIC #1: Discover the meaning in raw data
5 TACTIC #2: Check your data for billing mistakes
7 TACTIC #3: Automate processes whenever possible
9 TACTIC #4: Stay organized by setting priorities
12 TACTIC #5: Remain mobile and agile
13 TACTIC #6: Communicate with stakeholders
15 TACTIC #7: Build a team
16 TACTIC #8: Develop key performance indicators
19 TACTIC #9: Celebrate your success
21 TACTIC #10: Network
23 Synopsis
24 Acknowledgements
26 About this eBook
The Energy Manager’s Dilemma
Being an energy manager is one of the most exciting and rewarding
jobs that anyone can have. Whatever the work setting—corporate
office environment, educational campus, research or manufacturing
facility—the energy manager has a unique opportunity to play a
key role in organization success. For many institutions, energy is
the largest controllable operating expense. A successful energy
management program can make a big impact on the bottom line!

Often it is the energy manager who has the best opportunity

to define the organizational priorities for energy management
activities. He is the keeper of cost and consumption data, which is
really the key to understanding trends for forecasting and budgeting.
The energy manager is in a position to investigate new technologies,
and sometimes can experience the satisfaction of seeing them
successfully implemented. She can be an agent of positive change,
sigh.
having a real impact on the organization and beyond.

But as exciting and rewarding as the energy manager’s job may be, it
can also be challenging and frustrating—often for some of the same
reasons that make it so rewarding! Other energy stakeholders in the
organization are likely to place demands on the energy manager’s
limited time with multiple requests for energy information. New
technologies are expensive and sometimes risky to implement.

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Systemic issues beyond the scope of the energy manager’s limited
authority may impede progress on energy issues. Limited time,
personnel, and resources may do the same.

How can energy managers overcome these obstacles and difficulties

to achieve success in energy savings, dollar savings and process
efficiencies? The main reason that energy managers succeed is
because they do the right things.

10 Tactics
In this eBook, we will introduce 10 strategies used by the most
successful energy managers that we know.

The first few tactics are technical in nature. In the last few, we’ll
concentrate on some of the “soft skills” that are more interpersonal
and communications-oriented. Together, these ten techniques have
been used by many successful energy managers to achieve and
promote energy efficiency throughout their organization.

Not all these techniques may be equally applicable in every situation.

But most of them will be. We encourage you to put them into
practice!

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TACTIC #1: Discover the meaning in raw data
For most people, the immense quantity of data contained in their
utility bills is overwhelming, it’s just too much data, like the visible
stars in a clear night’s sky.

But the successful energy manager is able to fit those stars together
and understand just how they form a constellation. Within the
constellation, each star relates to the others and to the whole system
of stars. This ability to perceive relationships between disparate data
points is an important dimension of what every successful energy
manager does.

By relating each individual utility bill to all the others in the system,
the energy manager is able to bring meaning to the raw data. And
this is vitally important, because utility data tells a story about your
organization and how your organization uses energy over time. With
data, it becomes possible to establish a baseline for current energy
use, and identify reasonable goals for future energy reductions.
Historical trends can be identified, and used to evaluate future costs
for forecasting and budgeting.

The energy manager can bring meaning to data by:

Benchmarking
Comparing similar buildings and meters can easily identify energy
outliers, and can often provide insights for prioritizing energy

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 management projects. Initial comparisons provide baseline values
for future assessment.

Goal Setting
Once a performance baseline has been identified, goal-setting
helps focus efforts and define success.

Progress Monitoring
When the goal has been defined, the monitoring phase provides
the data to assess energy management initiatives. Assessment
data can provide useful information for both the current project
and future similar initiatives.

TACTIC #2: Check your data for billing mistakes Lotsabills

When it comes to utility bills, the expression “garbage in, garbage

out” is particularly true. If the raw data isn’t correct, then your
conclusions may not be correct either. This is why it’s important to
regularly check your utility bill data for mistakes. Proactive review
of your energy information for obvious data entry errors will help
ensure that you are building your energy management activities on a
reliable foundation.

The successful energy manager will audit utility bills regularly—

ideally every month. Valuable audit metrics include:

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 Unit Cost
Expense per unit of the commodity, as compared with previous
bills.

Unit Cost per Vendor

Expense per unit of the commodity, as compared with other
accounts for the same commodity and vendor.

Unit Cost per Rate Code

Expense per unit of the commodity, as compared with other
accounts using the same rate code.

NOTE: Be cautious about drawing quick conclusions from unit

cost data, since there may be significant and “normal” seasonal
variations. When interpretations are questionable, make certain to
cross-check data with analogous bills from previous years.

It is important to identify energy vendors who tend to have more

frequent billing issues. You will discover that there are certain
vendors who are more likely to issue rebills (a common symptom of
billing errors). It pays to keep a closer eye on them, so that you can
catch problems when they occur.

One EnergyCAP client had an unpleasant surprise when his utility

vendor issued rebills for the past 12 months, to the tune of an
additional $45,000 in unanticipated utility expenses. This is a
rare and extreme case, but it does happen, so be prepared and try

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to address potential billing problems early. They may recur and
compound over time.

Keep a “running tab” of your found savings. Whenever you uncover

a billing mistake, keep a log of how much you saved. This record can
be a starting point for some interesting discussions with others in
your organization, and over time, the log will become an important
document highlighting your value as an energy manager.

TACTIC #3: Automate processes whenever possible

Once you are in the habit of checking your data regularly and you
have set up a reliable data review process, automate processes
whenever and wherever possible. The successful energy manager
adds value through data analysis, so that’s where you want to spend
your time.

Data verification is an area where automation can be very beneficial

from a cost/labor standpoint. Read the Miami-Dade County case
study and discover how they instituted a nightly automated audit
routine where incoming bills are run through a series of rigorous
audits. Outliers are flagged for prompt attention. These automated
processes are saving the City/County money each time they run.

Benchmarking processes offer opportunities for automation

as well. EnergyCAP energy management software includes an
“auto-grouping” feature that has been designed specifically for
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energy benchmarking. The software automatically organizes
buildings and meters into similar groupings based on factors such
as building primary use, commodity, vendor, and rate. This makes it
easy to spot outliers.

Reporting is another area where automation can save a considerable

amount of labor. Tools are available that can customize, produce,
and automatically distribute energy reports via email at various time
intervals while ensuring that only the data relevant to each recipient
is displayed.

Data sharing is another opportunity for automation. Brittany

McCullar, Utilities Analyst for Texas State University details the
automation advantages her organization received from a software
purchase: “A vital part of the … installation was the completion of
the custom Accounts Payable reformatter,” she said. “This enabled
EnergyCAP to export utility bill data in the precise data format
required by the University’s AP system. As a result, Texas State
has permanently reallocated 40 working hours per month to other
duties by eliminating double data entry in the Utility Operations and
Accounts Payable departments.”

Learn How Texas State University

saved money & time with energy management software

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If you are spending hours manipulating flat files from your utility
vendors just to get your bills into a consistent format so you can
study them, you are spinning your wheels. Spreadsheets can be quite
useful for certain reporting or archiving tasks, but even Microsoft®
does not rely exclusively on Excel® for energy management! So
embrace technology and automate your routine tasks to give you
more time to spend in valuable data analysis.

TACTIC #4: Stay organized by setting priorities

The reality of being an energy manager is that you are pulled in
many directions at once. So make sure you stay organized by setting
priorities. The key is to prioritize so that the most important matters
receive the bulk of your attention.
K E I K E
h a t i s m

I
“W t is seldo

IL
President Dwight D. Eisenhower stated, “What is important is seldom

mi portnatnand what mis

urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” This is a valuable
perspective for an energy manager! There are so many “urgent”
urge ent is seldo

ER
demands on your time that important issues for the future of your
organization may be neglected. urg portant.”
im

W
IS

E
ENHO
President Eisenhower is credited with developing a simple tool that
can be used to ensure that important tasks are getting our time and
attention. It has been called the Eisenhower Matrix.

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You can use this matrix to organize your to-do list. We all have a
limited amount of time and we can’t do everything, so it’s important
to prioritize tasks. Using the matrix, you can organize and categorize
your tasks in terms of urgency and importance.
All of your tasks will fall into one of the four quadrants.
HIGH
Upper Left Quadrant
It may surprise you, but if you want use the matrix
most effectively, most of your time should be spent
in the upper left quadrant. These are the issues
that are important but not so urgent. These are
generally the tasks that must be scheduled, because
otherwise they might be left undone. It is all too
easy to avoid these tasks or to just pass over them.
IMPORTANT
But frequently, your greatest accomplishments will
be in this area of the matrix.
Lower Left Quadrant
The quadrant of the matrix in the lower left-hand
corner is reserved for tasks that are low urgency
and low importance. These are tasks you can do
later, or not at all.
LOW
URGENT
10
Upper Right Quadrant
The quadrant in the upper right-hand corner is
reserved for those issues that are both highly urgent
and highly important. These are the things that you
must do immediately. Your goal should be to keep
this list as short as possible because this is not the
ideal place to work.
Lower Right Quadrant
The lower right-hand quadrant of the matrix is the
place to list the tasks that have a high urgency but
low importance. These tasks need to be completed,
but often can be delegated to others. Tasks in
this category often afford good opportunities to
train and mentor other staff members or energy
stakeholders to assist so that you can focus on
issues and tasks of higher importance.
HIGH
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To see how this works in practice, let’s look at some examples to see
where they would fit on the matrix:

EXAMPLE 1: Building Sprinkler System

Let us suppose that you get a call that the sprinkler system in
one of your buildings is leaking. This is definitely a high urgency
priority. But what about its importance? If the malfunction is in
the president’s office, it would be an issue of high importance
that you might need to attend to yourself. But if the sprinkler
problem is in a basement utility closet, it could be the kind of
low-importance task that could be delegated to others.

EXAMPLE 2: Utility Bill Error

In this example, you have identified a probable billing error, and
you need to call the vendor to discuss it. We have already stressed
the importance of following up promptly on your billing issues, so
it would be appropriate to classify this task as high importance,
but it’s certainly not urgent.

It could be completed any time in the next couple of weeks (unless

your utility bill workflow dictates otherwise). This important
task should be scheduled to ensure that it is completed before it
becomes urgent. Set aside half an hour to make a phone call to
your utility representative.

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As you can see, the Eisenhower Matrix is a useful tool to help set
priorities and effectively manage your time so that you’re focusing
on the things that are of high importance to your organization.

See if you can use the Eisenhower Matrix this week to organize your
task list. By prioritizing the important tasks above the demands of
the urgent, you will be delighted with the gains in your productivity
and your energy management program.

TACTIC #5: Remain mobile and agile

Once you have added your tasks to the Eisenhower Matrix, it, may
seem best to stay at your desk and just knock out your to-do list. But
successful energy managers remain mobile and agile.

What does this mean in practice? First, don’t spend all your time
behind your desk! Thomas Ochtera, Energy Coordinator for the City of
Westminster, CO, puts it this way: “You can’t replace the technician
going out. You physically have to go onsite and troubleshoot.”

Read the case study on

the City of Westminster

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So get out of the office and observe your facilities—a brisk walk can
do a world of good for your health and your attitude. One longtime
university energy manager takes a lunchtime stroll every day. He
walks through a different section of the campus on each trip, and sets
aside enough time to stop and talk to people he meets on the way.

He says it is amazing how much information he picks up just

from talking with construction crews, maintenance workers, and
landscapers. During the winter months, he changes his routine
to focus on building walk-throughs, so that he can check for any
unusual conditions such as overheated areas or cold drafts.

TACTIC #6: Communicate with stakeholders

Communication is an important task of the modern energy manager.
Employers across the country are looking for communication and 0549
4 ST E P
presentation skills as part of the energy management skill set. It’s
not enough just to superintend the data. Now you have to be able to
share it with proficiency, in ways that are meaningful for multiple
audiences.

These changes are opportunities to spread your energy conservation

message across your organization. Work on improving your
accessibility to other energy stakeholders. You want to make yourself
available to others in your organization, to offer information,
education or assistance.

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Here are two quick tips to help you communicate more effectively in
your organization:

First of all, try to identify your stakeholders, both up and down

the chain of command. At a certain base level, everyone in your
organization is a stakeholder because all are impacted by your
energy management decisions. So it is important to work on building
relationships at many levels.

The more people you know in your organization, the more effective
you will be. But there will be other key players, often in the areas
of accounting, sustainability, or planning, who will have a vested
interest in many of the same energy issues that you do. Time
invested in these important relationships will pay dividends when
collaboration is needed on integration and/or company-wide
initiatives.

Second, always look for ways to simplify complicated topics. Many

of the issues that you deal with as an energy manager are very
complex, so the more you can simplify and make them readily
understandable by all stakeholders, the more buy-in you will be able
get for your plans.

In general, keep the discussion on broad topics. Many energy

managers tend to “get into the weeds” because of their love of
data and detail, but try to save the technical jargon for those

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who are really interested. Always be prepared to provide backup
documentation if you are asked, but not before!

TACTIC #7: Build a team

The next tactic is to build a team. Gone are the days when energy
managers had to work alone. When it comes to energy management,
the lines between departments are blurring. Energy conservation
is becoming the work of everyone, which means that a successful
energy manager is the one who can build a team.

Here are some suggestions for doing just that.

Don’t waste your time on the doubters.

In any organization there are always people who just don’t get it.
It’s tempting to try to convince them but it really doesn’t pay to
waste your energy on them. Instead, focus on building a strong
team with the people who are ready to get onboard and they
will be the ones who can start some positive momentum in your
organization.

Find your fans.

Go to wherever they are. Try to enlist ad hoc members from
different departments and different areas of your organization,
and you might be surprised who wants to get involved.

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 Welcome new viewpoints.
Remember, your team members don’t have to be energy experts.
You can teach them about energy. They really just need to want
to be a part of the team.

Value enthusiasm.
An ounce of enthusiasm is worth a pound of expertise. The
goal is to create a team that you can rely on to create positive
momentum through their enthusiasm. It is much more important

RE
to recruit someone who wants to be a part of the team—someone
E’
#1
who is going to participate and give you their viewpoints. You can
always provide instruction on the energy side but what you can’t W
do is to create enthusiasm for those who don’t want to be part of
the team. So keep an eye open for enthusiasm, and value it!

TACTIC #8: Develop key performance indicators

With all the urgent demands on your time it’s easy for this
important tactic to get pushed aside, but successful energy
managers develop key performance indicators or what we call
SMART goals.

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SMART goals are:

S: Simple and Specific.

The goal should be easy to understand and share.

M: Measurable.
You will need a way to demonstrate that you accomplished
the goal. Identify the appropriate metric(s) and then measure
regularly.

A: Achievable.
This can be a tricky goal. If the goal is too easy, then there will
be little sense of accomplishment in attaining it. Goals should
be attainable, but should also take some work. Sometimes, you
should not even set a goal. Don’t set goals if you don’t have the
knowledge, the skill or the funding available to achieve it, because
failure will be frustrating for everyone.

R: Relevant.
The goal needs to be something that is of benefit, that’s valuable
so that people are willing to work to achieve it. So make the goal
relevant and real to the team.

T: Timebound.
Setting a timeframe and/or deadline creates a sense of urgency.
Without a timeframe, nothing generally gets done. If this is a new
concept for your organization, make sure to start small. Focus on

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 the small changes that will result in measurable results. Early
small successes will build support for grander long-term goals.

Remember, the best goals are made in agreement with your

stakeholders and team members. But realistically, some goals may
already be set for you through legislation or policy decisions. In
these cases, you may often have to develop a set of intermediate
goals that will help you to meet those mandated targets for
performance.

If you’re looking for a good goal to start out with, try to discover
“found savings” by auditing your historical energy bills. This is a
great way to kick-start your savings program. Utility billing errors
can compound over time, so even a small discovery can often pay
big dividends.

Your goal as the energy leader is to help your team to start taking
ownership of their energy consumption. You can do this by
providing reliable metrics to measure how well they are doing.
Reviewing the historical utility billing information and finding the
best ways to categorize and classify it is an excellent way to broaden
understanding and get everyone on the same page.

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TACTIC #9: Celebrate your success
Many energy managers will finish a project and then immediately
move on to the next one, but it’s important to celebrate energy
management successes within your organization.

Celebrating your success is a great way to prove the value of your

department’s efforts. As you begin to quantify success at current
support levels, it becomes easier to project what may be possible
with an expanded staff and more resources.

When you start setting SMART goals and achieving them, you will
have many reasons to celebrate!

There are many opportunities to do this:

Reports
Your reporting regimen offers a unique opportunity for
celebration. Since you have to share data that you have collected
with the people who need it, make sure you understand your
audience. It might include your superiors at work, local citizens
woohoo!
(if you work for a government organization), students, parents
(who pay the education bills), or perhaps even shareholders. Good
reporting is relevant reporting, and you can’t be relevant unless
you know your audience.

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 Funding Proposals
Funding proposals offer a unique opportunity to celebrate.
Promotion can play a key role in funding. If you are able to
communicate effectively about past successes, you can make a
strong case for future funding.

Newsletters
An internal newsletter is a great way to talk about what you are
doing, and what you have accomplished. When sharing your
Monthly Newsletter
energy information, try to use comparisons or conversions.
Enough Saved to Drive
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electric car across the United States,” is generally better than “Last
month we saved 986 kWh.”
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actions do have an impact in your organization. You’ll want to be tendissequas di as rate cuptur acculla consequ atatistia dolupti di
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sure that you announce new projects and completed projects and Read more!
also hold celebration events, which can be as small or as elaborate
as you like. Experience Energy Data

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 Press Releases/Social Media
Don’t be satisfied just promoting your successes internally.
Share the good news externally whenever possible through such
venues as blogging, press releases, case studies, social media,
and more. When you promote externally, you are connecting
your organization’s brand to your energy successes. As an
energy management professional, you’re in a unique position
to help shape the company brand as an energy-conscious,
energy-efficient brand.

For more ideas on promoting your energy savings,

DOWNLOAD FREE EBOOK:
“Promoting Energy Savings with P.O.W.E.R.”

TACTIC #10: Network

The last tactic involves reaching out to others beyond your own
organization. You will want to tell everyone about your successes,
and learn about what works for others. Some of the best venues for
networking are conferences, but conferences can be intimidating,
so start with a smaller conference where you can feel comfortable
reaching out to others.

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Engineering society meetings offer a great way to network. These
organizations are almost always seeking guest speakers, so it can be
an inexpensive way to talk about some of the things that you have
been doing in your organization. With planning, you can even build
opportunities for feedback right into your presentation.

Local community groups are often seeking to broaden their

understanding of energy issues. Look for local and regional events
to present at. You might be surprised to discover just how many
people will turn out for a public meeting, especially if the topic title
is intriguing, and is advertised well.

Another networking venue is user group meetings. EnergyCAP,

Inc. has an annual Catalyst Training for Savings Conference every
spring. Energy management software users attend to learn about
the latest software updates, and to meet other people who are doing
energy management at their respective organizations. Networking at
training events like this one gives you a chance to find out how your
colleagues are managing their challenges—which are often similar to
yours.

Catalyst
Training for Savings Conference
Learn More

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Synopsis
This eBook has provided 10 Tactics to help you become even more
effective in saving energy and money for your organization.

Remember, your energy management program hinges on your

leadership:

1. Be sure that you’re seeking meaning in raw data (like

constellations in the night sky)

2. Check your data for billing mistakes (remember: garbage in—

garbage out)

3. Keep track of your found savings (log all savings details)

4. Automate processes wherever possible (spend your time on
analysis—NOT data entry)

5. Remain mobile and agile (get out from behind your desk and
into the physical plant)

6. Communicate with stakeholders (take time to build

relationships with key personnel)

7. Build your team (success will depend on your ability to get

others involved and excited about your plans)

8. Develop key performance indicators (they will help you

establish SMART goals)

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 9. Celebrate your successes (take the time to tell your story to the
world)

10. Network with other energy managers (it’s fun to share success
and learn about what others are doing!)

We hope these 10 Tactics will help you enjoy the exciting, rewarding,
challenging and frustrating life of an energy management
professional, and we honor you for your work.

Acknowledgements
Content for this eBook was freely adapted from a webinar presented
by SJ Bergman, Project Manager for EnergyCAP, Inc.

SJ is a member of ASHRAE, AEE, AESP, IBSA and PMI. She is a

certified energy manager and has been certified as a Measurement &
Verification professional by the Association of Energy Engineers.

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Tracking More Utility Bills Lotsab
ills

Than You Can Handle?

Schedule a free consultation to learn how EnergyCAP
energy management software can help you:

• Improve energy management processes

• Import bills electronically Lots

abills Lots
abills

• Automate utility bill audits

• Benchmark your buildings and meters

• Spot errors with facility/meter/account-based

PowerView® charts and graphs and meter-based
issue tracking

• Improve energy intelligence with 200+ reports.

Schedule a Free Consultation

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sab
ills
About This eBook
This eBook was prepared by EnergyCAP, Inc. (ECI). ECI publishes energy
management software to help organizations get value from their utility
bills. Over the past 30 years, more than 10,000 energy managers in 3,000
organizations have tracked $25 billion in energy spending using EnergyCAP
software.

EnergyCAP provides powerful energy and greenhouse gas tracking, utility

bill processing, auditing, reporting, analyzing, and benchmarking. Over
2,000 organizations currently use EnergyCAP including:
City Government: San Francisco, Baltimore, Sacramento, Virginia Beach,
Tampa, Denver, Jacksonville, Oklahoma City, Cleveland

County Government: Orange, Riverside, Santa Barbara, CA; Loudoun,

Fairfax, Chesterfield, VA; Miami-Dade, FL; Charlotte, FL

State Government: Maryland, Colorado, South Dakota, Montana,

Massachusetts, Manitoba

Federal: USMC, Smithsonian, U.S. Dept. of Energy Labs

Commercial: Equity Residential, Forest City, BJs Wholesale Clubs,

Burlington Coat Factory, Northrop Grumman

Education: 800+ school districts, SUNY system, University of California

system, University of Kansas

ECI regularly publishes educational resources like webinars, ebooks, case

studies, and blog posts about popular energy management topics. Learn
more at www.EnergyCAP.com.

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