If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. Now that creative mantra also holds true for utility sub-meters, thanks to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and over 200 major commercial building sector partners.

Together, they have issued a challenge to the nation’s manufacturers: If you can build wireless sub-meters that cost less than $100 apiece, we will buy them. 

Wireless sub-meters are available today, but typically cost about $1,000 per installation, so the goal is to reduce the cost by about 90 percent. The commercial partners already have signed letters of intent to purchase the winning wireless sub-meters—and at least 18 manufacturers have agreed to take up the challenge by developing devices that will meet the specifications outlined by the DOE.

Nationwide, the Department of Energy conservatively estimates that—if commercial buildings were to use sub-meters to identify energy savings of just 2 percent— it would represent actual, overall cost savings of $1.7 billion. 

What exactly is a sub-meter? It’s a do-hickey that enables a multi-tenant property management company to bill tenants for their individual electricity, gas, or water usage. Sub-metering also refers to the monitoring of the electrical consumption of individual equipment within a building, such as HVAC, indoor and outdoor lighting, refrigeration, kitchen equipment and more.

“This is a perfect example of how government can team up with industry to identify a problem and promote the innovation needed to solve it,” said new U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, in a statement.  “Affordable, accurate sub-metering of electricity use will give building managers the critical information they need to find and eliminate waste that hurts their businesses and costs billions of dollars a year.  Even a small improvement in efficiency will mean huge savings for companies as well as for taxpayers.”

The emphasis of the initiative is on saving money by saving energy. Electricity sub-meters don’t save energy by themselves, but they provide building operators with the information they need to identify opportunities for savings. For example, a large commercial building might pay $10,000 a month or more for electricity, but lack a method of determining which systems are consuming the most electricity. To do the job, wireless sub-meters could be installed in various electrical panels throughout the building. With the data the sub-meters provide, the commercial building operators could then bill individual tenants for their electricity usage, creating an incentive for energy efficiency.  

The Energy Department worked with members of its Better Buildings Alliance and federal agencies to develop a performance-based manufacturing specification. The specification recommends minimum performance requirements for one or more sub-meters. The metering system addresses energy consumption—measuring and monitoring granular electric energy consumption data at the panel-level to support the implementation of energy efficiency improvements.

The Department’s Washington, D.C. headquarters, the James A. Forrestal Building will be used as a testing facility. Energy data will be collected from within the facility’s eight occupied floors, basements, and 1,754,800-square feet of floor space.

Partners that have signed letters of intent expressing interest in purchasing the meters include: Bullitt Foundation, CBRE, Enterprise Green Communities, Fitzmartin Consulting, Jonathan Rose Companies, McKinstry, Natural Resources Defense Council, Prologis, Stanford University, University of California –Berkeley, University of Maryland Medical Center , U.S. Federal Energy Management Program, U.S. General Services Administration, Vermont Energy Investment Corporation, Whole Foods Market and Yum! Brand.

Participating building sensor and controls manufacturers have committed to producing cost-effective wireless building metering systems through a signed letter of intent, and the Department will offer third party verification that the wireless building metering systems meet the performance specifications.  These manufacturers include BLUEdev, Continental Controls –MicroStrain, Dent Instruments, Eaton (News - Alert) Corporation, Energy Aware Technologies, Energy Detective, IE Technologies, Ingreenium, Inoscope International, Lem, Leviton, LoadIQ, Negawatt, Obvius, Powerhouse Dynamics, Schneider Electric, Smart OES (News - Alert) and Universal Devices.

While energy usage and energy intensity varies widely based on the size and service of the building, the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s survey of U.S. commercial buildings found that in 2003, commercial buildings spent roughly $1.15 per square foot of floor space. That would mean that a 100,000 square foot commercial building – the size of a typical big-box store, for example – might have an electricity bill of over $100,000 a year.  The same survey found that the largest commercial buildings (those with over 500,000 square feet) garnered electricity bills exceeding $1 million a year. Even a small increase in building energy efficiency can help a business improve its bottom line and become more competitive.