DTE Energy Technologies Inc. (Detroit, MI) has applied its proprietary energy|now System Operations Center™ (SOC) technology to reduce the costs of operating distributed generation at a Canadian Government health research facility. DTE Energy has calculated the savings to be nearly 15% and determined that before the SOC technology was utilized, the facility had difficulty achieving cost savings when using distributed generation.
DTE Energy officials say this is a realization of one of the early design goals of the energy|now SOC. The system was designed to provide a comprehensive end-to-end solution that utilizes patent-pending technology to enable customers to save up to 10% more than they would with alternative systems. The SOC does this by simultaneously considering real-time energy prices, forecasted electric and thermal loads, maintenance costs, unit availability, efficiency curves, reliability needs, and other key parameters to determine the most economically effective way to provide electric and thermal energy to customers.
