Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority – Emily Grady – 2014

Goals

Emily Grady was enlisted by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) as an EDF Climate Corps fellow. Before Grady’s arrival, the MBTA was using 450 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually, and it did not have a comprehensive understanding of how this electricity was allocated across the system. Grady’s job this summer was to aggregate electricity data and determine the system’s electricity use by utility company, train line, facility, end use function and city for the year 2013.

Solutions

Working closely with the Authority’s Energy Manager, Grady found that the MBTA’s complicated distribution network, along with gaps in the electricity data provided by the utility companies made accurate long-term energy baselining impossible. Gaps in the data prevented the MBTA from monitoring the energy savings associated with 60 Energy Conservation Measures that have been implemented over the past few years, with stipulated savings of over 12 million kWh annually. These challenges revealed the importance of enterprise-level energy management, and Grady put together a strategic plan, justification and system-level specifications for MBTA-wide sub-metering and an enterprise energy management system (EEMS). 

Potential Impact

Based on these recommendations, the MBTA is now in the process of meeting with vendors to determine the optimal solutions for the Authority.