U.S. Department of Energy Selects The Tower Companies for Nantum Technology Field Validation Initiative
NEW YORK, NY, October 29, 2020 – Prescriptive Data, Inc., developers of the world’s first smart building operating system, Nantum OS, have announced a new initiative between the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Technology Office, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and The Tower Companies. The Tower Companies, one of DC’s premier office building owners, recently installed Nantum OS at 1828 L St NW as part of a smart building technology field validation initiative.
Nantum OS, Prescriptive Data’s flagship product, is the world’s first fully integrated cloud-based smart building operating system. Nantum OS extracts and consolidates live data from building systems, external data providers, and from third-party IoT solutions into a secure cloud environment called the Nantum Cloud. Using this real-time data, Nantum OS employs machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms to optimize real-time operational efficiency, enhance tenant comfort, reduce utilities costs and energy usage, improving building net-operating profits (NOI), and thereby increasing the underlying value of real estate assets.
“Prescriptive Data is delighted to be collaborating with such high caliber organizations as The Tower Companies, known for world-class sustainability projects and efficient operational practices, as well as mission-oriented organizations such as the U.S. Department of Energy and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,” says Prescriptive Data CEO, Sonu Panda. “Like our previous measurement and verification studies completed by NYSERDA, we expect LBNL’s field validation study to illustrate Nantum OS’ ability to reduce Tower Companies' energy usage and utilities costs, and tangibly impact their overall carbon footprint.”
The DOE’s Better Buildings Initiative is a partnership platform that challenges industry leaders to set ambitious energy and water reduction goals while sharing resources on proven technologies that improve building performance. DOE is collaborating with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to conduct a field validation of Prescriptive Data's Nantum OS technology, and has selected Better Buildings partner, The Tower Companies (Tower) as its industry host to deploy and validate Nantum OS in a commercial office building. Tower has demonstrated leadership in sustainability for over two decades and has exceeded the 20% reduction goals for both energy and water prescribed by DOE’s Better Buildings Challenge.
Jeffrey Abramson, a partner at Tower, is excited to expand their efficiency efforts and recognizes the potential of Prescriptive Data’s smart building technology.
“Tower is committed to addressing climate change and advancing sustainability through smart development and efficient operations,” Abramson said. “We've partnered with the Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Challenge and are using Prescriptive Data’s Nantum OS to gain insights to advance energy efficiency, provide healthy and comfortable working environments to our tenants, and share what we learn with the industry.”
The field validation will be conducted at 1828 L St. N.W. in Washington, D.C. This site hosts a 338,000 SF office building owned and operated by Tower. Under the supported scope of work, LBNL will work with Prescriptive Data and Tower to evaluate the energy efficiency and non-energy benefits of Nantum technology. This effort is expected to continue into calendar year 2021, with the total duration driven by actual conditions in the facility. The evaluation will be made available to the public in the form of a technical report and/or a peer reviewed journal publication.
“The Tower Companies continues to demonstrate leadership as a Better Buildings Challenge partner,” said Maria Vargas, Program Director, DOE Better Buildings Initiative “Not only has Tower met both aggressive energy and water reduction goals, but they are sharing their solutions – in both the commercial and residential sectors – with others. Tower continues to demonstrate leadership by working with DOE to field test the latest technologies in their buildings.”
In a recent case study released by Tower, the firm’s Sustainability Manager, Jonathan Bauer, explained that Nantum is like “having another engineer in the building who is reading 25,000 data points and making adjustments automatically while triggering preventive warnings. He added: “It doesn’t replace people, but it makes us better at our jobs by helping us work more efficiently—and that is a value add that is hard to quantify in a simple payback calculation.”
Bauer also noted: “The energy and cost savings benefits were important, but what tipped us over the edge was that this is the technology of the future. If we don’t get in as an early adopter, we’ll fall behind, especially in a competitive market like DC.”
For more information, the full case study can found here:
About The Tower Companies
For three generations, the family-owned Tower Companies has maintained a commitment to responsible development and continues to envision a world where buildings inspire and enrich the lives of their occupants and create positive social change. The sustainable building leader owns, develops, and manages over 6 million square feet in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area consisting of office buildings, office parks, lifestyle centers, regional malls, eco-progressive live-work-play communities and hotels, with an additional 13 million square feet in the development pipeline. In 2004, The Tower Companies was the first in the United States to achieve LEED® certification at a multi-family community, Blair Towns, and since then, 95 percent of their commercial and multi-family residential properties have achieved LEED® certification and 80 percent are ENERGY STAR® certified. In addition, Tower publicly reports their portfolio’s carbon footprint to The Climate Registry and offsets 100 percent of GHG emissions by supporting renewable energy projects in North America. Through a partnership with the Department of Energy, the Tower Companies pledged to reduce energy and water consumption 20 percent by 2020, then surpassed those targets in 2017. The Tower Companies is an international authority in the industry and has been recognized for its commitment to sustainability and energy independence by numerous national organizations and federal agencies, including the U.S. Green Building Council, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and more.
About Prescriptive Data
Established in 2015, Prescriptive Data is a privately held smart building technology company based in NYC, focused on the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, machine-learning, and artificial intelligence as applied to built spaces of any and all types, globally. Prescriptive Data’s suite of cloud-based applications is available for portfolio managers and building owners, building operators, and corporate tenants developing sustainability strategies.
Prescriptive Data’s mission is to become the de facto Building Operating System vendor by optimizing the built environment, replenishing the earth and enriching the human experience. Nantum OS, Prescriptive Data’s flagship product, unlocks correlated trends and analyzes data from disparate building systems (including BMS, utility & power quality meters, and access control) and combines this with data from third-party sources (such as weather, occupancy, and IoT sensors) to prescribe operational adjustments in real-time that improve building performance and tenant comfort. Other Prescriptive Data product offerings include Nantum Workplace, a solution designed for enterprise tenants looking to optimize real-time operations across their leased spaces, and Nantum Tenant, a mobile app which enhances the experience for all stakeholders interacting with various IT/OT systems in the modern built environment.
