Vistula Management Company – Matthew Bandyk – 2017

Goals

Vistula Management Co., the largest private manager of low and moderate-income housing in Toledo, Ohio, enlisted EDF Climate Corps fellow Matthew Bandyk to monitor its energy use and promote efficiency. The company operates a diverse housing stock, and receives monthly paper bills, which makes it difficult to track its energy performance. Vistula has also been a leader in solar power for low-income communities, but has never completed a detailed analysis of exactly how much it was saving by using solar panels on the rooftops of several buildings.

Solutions

Bandyk waded through Vistula’s utility bills and created an electronic system for tracking and analyzing the data. Included were intuitive graphs showing where various buildings are lagging compared to the national median in energy use per square foot. He then worked with Vistula’s utilities, such as Toledo Edison, to obtain digital information about how much electricity the buildings use. A financial analysis of how much the company could save over the life of solar panels by generating electricity from rooftop solar rather than buying it from the grid was also completed.

Potential Impact

The new system for tracking energy is expected to save Vistula staff members about 20 hours of work per week. By improving efficiency at just two of its less-efficient apartment buildings, Vistula could cut energy enough to reduce CO2 emissions by about 200 metric tons per year. Bandyk’s analysis of the solar projects identified that switching to solar with nearly 200 kW on the rooftops of several buildings could avoid roughly another 160 metric tons of CO2.