Schneider Electric's Square D Company Awarded U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Advanced Electrical Metering Project
November 11, 2009

Schneider Electric announced today that its Square D Company has been awarded the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Advanced Electrical Metering project under the Square D General Services Administration (GSA) Contract #GS-07F-9462G. The $24.9 million project, expected to commence before the end of 2009 and mandated to complete within 365 days, will include the design and installation of an integrated, advanced electrical metering system to read, analyze, accumulate and communicate energy data at nearly 1,000 buildings across 169 VA sites nationwide. Managed by the VA National Energy Business Center in Sevens Hills, Ohio, the project will help the VA comply with federal energy efficiency requirements outlined in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007) and the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005).

“Schneider Electric is pleased to have been chosen to assist the VA in helping to actively manage its energy consumption and comply with federal energy efficiency mandates,” said Jack McCauley, Schneider Electric federal government national account manager. “Schneider Electric will work closely with the VA National Energy Business Center to coordinate this substantial, nationwide effort to ensure the project is completed on time and all of the VA’s goals are met at its completion.”

The VA owns more than 5,000 buildings segmented by Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) regions. Twenty VISNs are covered by the project, along with four business administration offices, and one headquarters location. Primary project objectives include:
• Compliance with Section 103 of EPAct 2005, which requires federal agencies to install advanced electric metering on every building by 2012.
• Compliance with EISA 2007, which requires all federal government agencies to reduce energy consumption by 3 percent per year through 2015.
• Ability to monitor, track and trend facility electricity usage, and measure and verify Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPC) savings.
• Verification of total electrical usage and proper utility billing, along with monitoring of out-leased space for accurate billing and savings resulting from use of energy management systems.

The new Advanced Electrical Metering system will be composed of Square D® PowerLogic® advanced energy and power meters and PowerLogic ION® Enterprise Energy Management (EEM) software for data acquisition. All energy and power quality data will be funneled to the primary PowerLogic ION EEM enterprise energy management software that will be hosted remotely by Schneider Electric. McCauley said energy information will be displayed to VA personnel in customizable, user-friendly dashboards to allow each user to view information specific to their site. The system will initially capture solely electrical data, but is flexible enough to expand at the VA’s purview to also include water, air, gas and steam metering.

“The installation of Square D PowerLogic meters along with the associated ION EEM system will help the VA comply with advanced metering requirements of EPAct 2005 and EISA 2007,” McCauley said. “More importantly, the advanced metering system will enable the VA to actively manage its energy consumption and make educated decisions on which energy conservation measures to implement at specific facilities to meet their energy reduction goals.”

McCauley added that Schneider Electric intends to support the VA’s subcontracting goals via 100 percent subcontracting with small businesses, 80 percent of which will be subcontracted to Veteran-Owned or Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned firms.

For more information about Schneider Electric energy management solutions for federal government facilities, call 1-888-SQUARED.

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