Enerprize is an energy and carbon management platform that gamifies climate action planning for educational institutions. The goal of this tool is to engage stakeholders at all levels of a school organization in the climate action planning process, involving spending large amounts of public funds. Stakeholders include students, staff, district employees, administration, and the board of education, each interacting with the tool in different ways. It aims to educate about the impact of everyday amenities on greenhouse gas emissions and provide monitoring and decision-making capabilities for various organizational roles. District employees - specifically operations staff like food services, maintenance, facilities, and IT - would have monitoring capability to view and better manage their departmental energy and carbon intensity. Finally, the board of education would have site level data that aggregates the performance of each school site to guide decisions on where energy projects are most needed to provide equitable, high impact decarbonization solutions. This platform would involve the following steps to implement: 1) Benchmarking 2) Scoping 3) Execution 4) Verification.
- Establish a framework for a district's energy and carbon sources.
- Organize contestants by school site, organizational unit, or building number using campus maps and construction documents.
- Simplify the view of energy and carbon emissions for building operators.
- Ensure compatibility with available information for measurable and verifiable improvements.
- Engage the executive cabinet based on baseline evaluations to determine the scope of energy projects.
- Incorporate the scope of work into climate education and the Climate Action Plan, approved by the board of education.
- Formalize the performance period start date in the Climate Action Plan.
- Award points in the Enerprize competition, with fair weighting for districts of all sizes.
- Divide school sites into tiers based on school type and enrollment size.
- Follow measurement and verification procedures post-completion to validate climate impact.
- Collaborate with construction teams and review normalized energy meter consumption data.
- Navigation Panes with district and site level maps, clickable buildings leading to dedicated webpages.
- Campus Mapping for digital map rendition with manual adjustments.
- Data Records for storing notes, drawings, and building information, focusing on mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems.
- Utility Tracking to indicate energy types used in buildings.
- Visual Indicators for file types and utility interval data uploading.
- This tool shall have the ability to seamlessly upload Green Button Data (15 minutes and hourly interval). This app shall be compatible with Green Button Data from PGE and SCE.
- Normalization capability using CalTRACK methods for commercial applications.
- Enrollment Data Entry for capturing student numbers and socioeconomic data.
- Outputs like energy and carbon intensity metrics with graphical data representations.
- District Staff with comprehensive access and read/write capabilities, except for unalterable utility meter data.
- Site Staff with view-only access.
- NZEO Staff with full administrative rights, including data and access management.
- Admin Portal for NZEO for overarching access and management features.
- Competition:
- The competition is split into two phases: Enerbuild and Enerprize.
- Enerbuild will focus on developing the program internally and award points based on:
- Climate Curriculum Enrollment
- Climate Action Plan targets
- Portion of students impacted – multiplier for disadvantaged communities.
- No. of grassroots outreach campaigns
- Climate Curriculum (coverage and depth)
- Sustainable design and construction practices
- Enerprize will focus on the performance of the energy project:
- CO2 reductions (lbs and %)
- Energy reductions (kBTU and %)
- Climate Curriculum performance
- Energy savings accelerator participation
- Progression:
- Enerbuild Phase
- Student & Teacher Progress through the video series will be indicated on the dashboard with virtual school buses with each classroom represented
- District Staff Progress of benchmarking activities for each site will be aggregated on a dashboard to reflect the overall progress of the site
- Enerprize Phase
- Leaderboards showing all school sites and inter-district energy and carbon performance will be made available
- Enerbuild Phase
- Strategy:
- Strategic buying and selling of carbon credits amongst school sites during the performance period
- Incentivizes strategic collaborations for effective project scopes and measureable improvements.
- Incentivizes behavioral changes amongst students and staff
- Incentivizes operational improvements from district staff
- Storytelling Mechanism:
- Video series that covers the various climate disasters and GHG mitigation efforts people are taking to solve. Similar presentation style to "Bill Nye the Science Guy" but for climate and building sciences.
- These videos will also serve to educate users on the platform capabilities
- Focus:
- The theme will be a Cap-and-Trade marketplace.
- Enerprize tournaments will enter into one of four tracks - Energy Efficiency, Electrification, Demand Flexibility, and Renewable Energy
- Additional sources of GHG emission can be addressed - such as food waste, refrigerant management, agriculture, and transportation but with a custom methodology. This will be handled as a custom track.
- Collaboration:
- Group learning will take place through video sessions followed by intermitten poll exercises.
- Participants will be able to engage in simulations of cap-and-trade markets
- Students and staff will have the opportunity to participate in a variety of ways for additional points, like grassroots outreach campaigns, and student advocacy for energy upgrades.
- Aesthetics:
- Shall follow the Net Zero Energy Operators brand.
- Functionality and simplicity are prioritized over complexity and detail
- Resource management:
- Carbon credits to reward emissino reductions and support under-resourced sites. Carbon credits can only be accumulated during the performance period.
- Timeframe:
- Two distict phases: Enerbuild (focusing on climate planning and climate enrollment) and Enerprize (emphasizing measured energy performance). Each phase is estimated to be twelve (12) months.
- Rewards & Scoring:
- Points awarded based on sustainable construction practices, climate curriculum participation, impact on disadvantaged communities, and overall project performance.
- Levels:
- Different tracks are available to complete. Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Electricfication, and Demand Flexibility. Once all four tracks are complete - this leads to Net Zero Operation recognition.
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Point Scoring System (Carbon Credit Score)
- Phases:
- Divided into Enerbuild and Enerprize phases.
- Enerbuild (850/1700):
- Rewards for green design innovations and sustainable construction practices.
- Points multiplier for serving disadvantaged populations.
- Points for number of students enrolled in climate education.
- Enerprize (850/1700):
- Points for measured GHG emissions reductions per student (Scope 1 and 2).
- Points for measured energy savings (kWh) per student.
- Points for achieving set goals in CAP for each site.
- Points for high academic performance in climate curriculum.
- Phases:
-
Resource Management
- Sites earn a carbon credit for each ton of carbon removed.
- Credits can be allocated to other school sites.
- 1 point for Sender, 1⁄2 point for Receiver
- Simulates a cap-and-trade market.
- Points are awarded to schools sharing carbon credits.
- Helps bridge performance gaps within school district when competing in tournament.
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Challenges
- Curriculum accelerator challenges teachers and staff by milestone days.
- Encouraging site participation in energy conservation events like seasonal demand-shed strategies or peak-period emergency events
- Awards for implementing multifaceted GHG reductions beyond interval data (e.g., transportation, food waste, recycling programs).
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Real-Time Feedback
- Continuous utility AMI data logging and monitoring.
- Monthly progress comparisons with historical data.
- Required to normalize data to weather conditions for Performance Period.
- Displays energy use intensity, estimated carbon intensities, and curriculum completion percentage.
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Progression:
-
Enerbuild Phase
- Student & Teacher Progress through the video series will be indicated on the dashboard with virtual school buses with each classroom represented (percent completion)
- District Staff Progress of benchmarking activities for each site will be aggregated on a virtual analog dial dashboard to reflect the overall progress of the site (carbon credit score)
-
Enerprize Phase
- Leaderboards showing all school sites and inter-district energy and carbon performance will be made available. Shall be web app based and be updated on a monthly basis.
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Achievements and Badges
- Monthly recognitions for significant energy or carbon emissions reductions.
- Awards for highest-scoring classrooms in climate curriculum.
- Recognitions for largest volunteer participation.
Overview: Enerprize platform will have simple graphs that compare monthly values of kWh and CO2e intensity per student and per square foot. The dashboards shall also have the capability to aggregate the information of all sites or manually filter out a single site. Some of these features will be available for internal NZEO use – due to their technical complexity (heat maps, 3D surface plots). Each of the sites shall have the following capability:
- Dashboards showing baseline period (electric only (kWh and
$), gas only (kBTU and $ ), combined (kBTU and $) - Dashboards showing intervention period (electric only (kWh and
$), gas only (kBTU and $ ), combined (kBTU and $) - Dashboard showing performance period (electric only (kWh and
$), gas only (kBTU and $ ), combined (kBTU and $) - Ability to zoom into daily profile (where 15m or hourly data available)
- Visual aid of energy and carbon intensity per student
- Bar Charts: for comparing energy usage and cost data across different periods
(baseline, intervention, performance). Use separate bar charts for electric (kWh
and
$), gas (kBTU and $ ), and combined energy usage and costs. This makes it easier to compare data across different energy sources and time periods. - Line Graphs: Effective for showing trends over time, particularly useful for daily profiles where 15-minute or hourly data is available.
- Pie Charts: Useful for showing the proportion of energy use or carbon emissions from different sources.
- Heat Maps: Good for representing data density and variations over a time period or across different areas.
- 3D Surface Plots: Combined variables of temperature, occupancy,