Presentation: Utilities Management with the PI System

The Engineering & Utilities (E&U) department of Harvard University manages the production, procurement, distribution and billing of utilities for much of the University's Cambridge and Allston campuses including chilled water, steam, electricity, water, sanitary/storm drainage, natural gas, and fuel oil. E&U maintains a district steam system serving 250 facilities, two chilled water plants with a total capacity of 18,000 tons and a 50 MW electric micro-grid with seven medium voltage stations that interface with the local utility. Unlike many large institutions, Harvard does not procure utilities from a central administration fund, rather each user and school is responsible for paying for the utilities they consume. E&U is responsible for monitoring consumption and recovering costs on a monthly basis.

Ten years ago E&U wanted to connect the meters for campus supplied utilities and selected utility operating points into a hybrid Automated Meter Reading system. The equipment would have to communicate securely across numerous decentralized Ethernet networks to a central PI Server. To date Harvard have 650 meters connected representing 90% of the total internally supplied campus energy load. This presentation will go over the system architecture, and numerous examples of how data from the PI System is used to troubleshoot operations, assist in capital planning, save manpower and money, and to promote sustainability within the general population by using PI ProcessBook, PI DataLink, and PI WebParts.