ELMHURST MEMORIAL HEALTHCARE
GREEN BUTTON CONNECT MY DATA
THE ELMHURST MEMORIAL HEALTHCARE MAIN CAMPUS
Location
155 E. Brush Hill Road, Elmhurst, IL
Groundbreaking
May 2, 2008
Opening date
June 25, 2011
Campus size
50 acres
Hospital size
866,000 square feet (7 stories)
Number of beds
259 private inpatient suites
Medical office building size
80,000 square feet
SPOTLIGHT ON ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, founded in 1926, became a
comprehensive health system—with numerous locations
throughout Chicago’s western suburbs—in 2011 through
the expansion of both its size and its services. With the
opportunity to create a unique healthcare experience in a
new intelligent, integrated hospital, the hospital’s vision
incorporated the latest trends in advanced technology
and healthcare design to ensure the patient experience
would be an unparalleled one. The end result was an
inviting campus bringing comprehensive medical
services together in one convenient location, with easilyaccessible buildings for office visits, diagnostic tests and
inpatient care.
Healthcare facilities operate 24-7 and are one of the
largest users of electricity in the commercial sector; even
small gains in efficiency can therefore lead to significant
energy savings. To help achieve such savings, EMH
installed energy efficient equipment for heating and
cooling and advanced lighting controls to minimize
lighting in areas not in use. According to the
Environmental Protection Agency, a 10% reduction in
energy costs for an average hospital can increase their
profit margin by 16% annually. “At EMH we’re
committed to not only state-of-the-art medical care, but
we also embrace new technologies and opportunities for
energy efficiency,” says Gene Farb, Elmhurst Memorial
Healthcare Director of Facilities.
In order to pinpoint additional energy savings
opportunities, EMH took advantage of ComEd’s Smart
Ideas® Retro-Commissioning (RCx) program. A fullyfunded analysis of EMH’s commercial building energyusing systems was conducted. The recommendations
resulting from ComEd’s RCx analysis offered low-cost
and no-cost improvements to building operating practices
to help EMH lower facility operating costs while
improving the comfort and productivity of facility visitors
and occupants.
ENERGY INSIGHTS ONLINE—AN OVERVIEW
EMH also helps manage their electricity consumption
and reduce energy costs by using customized reports
from ComEd’s Energy Insights Online. A free Webbased energy analysis service, Energy Insights Online
monitors electricity consumption and converts the data
into simple, easy-to-understand usage graphs and reports
that can be accessed online. With this information,
energy consumption between facilities can be compared,
best practices shared, and irregular usage spikes or
wasteful trends identified and corrected.
LEVERAGING THE TRANSPARENCY AND INTEROPERABILITY OF GREEN BUTTON DATA
In 2012, the utility industry-led Green Button initiative was launched in response to a
White House call to action.
The intended outcome was to encourage utility companies to voluntarily provide energy
usage data to customers in a secure and accessible format. With standardized readily-available information,
customers would be in a better position to make informed decisions about how to directly reduce energy
consumption—and save money.
Today, more than 60 million households and businesses can use Green Button to access their own energy usage
data from their electric utility, and an increasing number of companies such as ComEd and Schneider Electric are
offering products, services and apps that utilize Green Button data.
GREEN BUTTON “CONNECT MY DATA”—
ENHANCING ENERGY DATA ACCESS AND VISIBILITY
Savvy energy managers such as EMH know that
managing electricity consumption can return huge
savings. There is a growing buzz about how analytics is
the next tool to help energy managers continue to improve
energy performance. But the area of energy analytics can
be complex and, until recently, specific measurement of
energy consumption meant significant investments in
hardware, software and installation services. For
commercial customers such as EMH, thanks to Green
Button Connect My Data that is no longer the case.
ComEd customers benefit directly from the enhanced
functionality Connect My Data provides within the
existing Energy Insights Online service platform. As an
energy manager, with Connect My Data EMH can grant
third-party service providers direct access to facility
energy usage. Leveraging this access to existing energy
data being tracked via Energy Insights Online enables
analytics to be performed on an even deeper level, so that
customized recommendations specific to EMH’s facility
energy usage and performance can be provided.
SUCCESSFUL PARTNERSHIP, SUCCESSFUL SOLUTIONS—
AND RESULTS
EMH capitalizes on the benefits and incentives under the
Smart Ideas® Energy Efficiency Program. Using Energy
Insights Online and authorized third-party service
provider Schneider Electric, EMH leverages their existing
infrastructure and measurement/data analytics system—
with zero additional investment. Through the utility
interface provided by Energy Insights Online’s Green
Button Connect My Data service, electricity usage
information from various sources is combined with
information compiled via Schneider Electric’s cloud-based
Building Analytics solution from multiple sensor points
within EMH’s HVAC control system.
This comprehensive analysis results in the compilation of
useful detailed information related to EMH’s energy
consumption, such as actual versus expected electricity
usage. It also enables the identification of low-cost and
no-cost operational improvements—behavior, equipment
and/or system changes—that if implemented will help
EMH optimize both facility energy performance and
efficiency.
BENEFITS OF GREEN BUTTON CONNECT MY DATA
“The Green Button Connect My Data functionality
provides increased visibility into electricity usage, which
is one of the easiest and most efficient ways ComEd can
help its commercial customers produce energy savings on
a large scale,” observes Val Jensen, ComEd’s Senior VP of
Customer Operations.
EMH’s Gene Farb agrees. “I don’t have to conduct the
actual analysis myself, wade through overwhelming data,
or even necessarily try to interpret the analytics. Our
partners do that efficiently for us.”
Farb concludes, “Recommendations are supplied based on
both Green Button smart meter data and building
automation data, backed by measurement and
verification. That allows us to compare energy usage
history and trends—and reduce electric consumption by
implementing customized energy efficiency measures.”
For more information about ComEd, Energy Insights Online and Green Button Connect My Data
go to ComEd.com/EIO.
© Commonwealth Edison Company, 2015
Smart Ideas® is funded by ComEd customers in compliance with Illinois law.