Department of Fisheries & Oceans

Offering an invaluable energy-tracking tool to the federal department entrusted with protecting West Coast marine resources

Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) manages & protects the marine environment in the three oceans that border the nation, "from the smallest sea creature to the largest commercial fishing vessel." In the Pacific Region, DFO is charged with overseeing 27,000 kilometres of coastline & hundreds of fish species, including the five species of Pacific salmon.

 
 

Challenge

 

The DFO has 43 major land-based facilities in British Columbia, consuming a total of more than $1.6 million of electricity & $600,000 of natural gas per year. DFO facilities include Canadian Coast Guard bases, scientific research labs & fish hatcheries. (Lighthouses & other nautical aids are not included in the usage totals above.) Cognizant of the fact that "you can't manage what you don't measure," DFO sought a means of tracking & analyzing energy consumption at their numerous facilities to reduce costs & greenhouse gas emissions as well as improve overall energy management.

Solutions

 

Prism proposed its proprietary online system for utility accounting. The Web-based database system, an online tracking tool known as Prism Utility Monitoring & Analysis (PUMA), allows the DFO to accomplish the following key objectives, with no need for installed software:

  • review billing reports from electricity & fuel bills for each account

  • access customizable reports online & generate reports for individual or any desired grouping of locations

  • track electricity & fuel consumption and costs compared to previous periods in an individual or consolidated fashion

  • identify locations with higher than targeted consumption that may require investigation

  • evaluate the impact of energy & cost-saving projects, adjusted for the impact of weather

  • track energy savings & GHG reductions in comparison with a baseline

  • identify utility billing anomalies

  • allow benchmarking against internal & external sources

  • add new facilities to the database as they come on line

"An energy management program must be an ongoing process in order to optimize the benefits. Information from PUMA is an excellent tool which allows clients to provide timely feedback to the energy management team & the facility users, increasing their interest in the program and focusing their efforts."

-Brian O'Donnell, Prism Engineering

Results

 

Through DFO's energy management actions, energy costs for the 43 monitored locations have been reduced by an average of 7% for electricity & 14% for natural gas for their 2008-09 fiscal year compared with the 2005-06 baseline. Based on an analysis using the PUMA tracking tool, DFO is saving more than $110,000 in annual electricity costs & $70,000 in gas costs, while reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by more than 1,500 tonnes of CO2 per year. The information gathered has provided critical feedback to DFO staff, which encourages their ongoing conservation efforts. As part of the service, DFO receives an overview each month from Prism listing key concerns that require investigation as well as a detailed annual report summarizing results & setting a future course of action.