Energy prices – always a pain point for anyone responsible for the heating, cooling and smooth performance of large buildings, industrial infrastructure and other real estate assets – loom as large as ever right now to operating margins and corporate bottom lines.

The Manufacturing, Retail and Commercial Real Estate sectors, already beset with supply chain issues and a tight labor market, are seeking ways to optimize energy performance and to leverage technology solutions to save money, improve efficiency and collect the data necessary to meet new demands for sustainability and ESG initiatives.

This is a tall order. Years of energy price spikes have led procurement and facilities professionals, along with the Chief Financial Officers who scrutinize their budgets, to streamline processes, seek more efficient machinery, insulate and weather-proof their spaces, and generally to wring every kilowatt hour humanly possible out of monthly and yearly energy consumption.

Putin it to you

The hammer blow that struck Ukraine in March was more than just a devastating and cynical Russian effort to wipe an inconvenient democracy from the face of the Earth. Beyond the tragic scenes unfolding in Ukraine itself, the war is a reminder that unexpected events – what economists call “Black Swans” – may not be as rare in human history as they are in nature.

For the second time in this young decade, an event that struck most of us like a bolt from the blue has overturned the assumptions of governments, investors, corporate strategists and average people. The first, of course, was the onset of COVID-19, a plague that continues to take lives, distort day-to-day routines, and which has altered forever long-standing assumptions about work, health and indoor spaces.

Among the more tangible effects that both have driven is wild volatility in global energy prices. It’s nothing compared with the real human pain being inflicted on Ukraine. But the costs are real, and the need to do something about them urgent.

Benchmark West Texas Intermediate grade crude since 1945

Source: US Energy Information Agency

That’s where EverSmart Energy comes in. EverSmart Energy – powered by Microshare’s partner SiteWatch IoT – provides data to manage both costs and consumption of electricity, natural gas and even water. It also provides a real-time view into the performance of HVAC, circuit breakers and key heavy machinery.

By optimizing run times and identifying anomalies, waste and unplanned breakdowns can be radically reduced. EverSmart Energy takes efficiency beyond what is humanly possible. It adds the on demand, real-time power of Microshare’s Sensing Network and SiteWatch IoT’s innovative monitoring systems to augment the reaction times and intelligence capabilities of your staff.

Hard times require smart buildings

There was a time when it seemed energy prices might stabilize. As purchasing managers know, stable prices – even if they are elevated – are easier to manage than prices that veer wildly, driven by unexpected events.

Yet since at least the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that’s precisely what has happened. After a long period of stability following the Iran hostage crisis of 1979, when an oil crisis sent the economies of the West into recession, the spikes in the price of oil and gas have become more frequent. Whether it’s a war in the Persian Gulf, a hurricane that damages oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico or an economic event like the 2008 global financial crisis, these disruptions have come fast and furious in the 21^st century, and it makes the job of budgeting, maintaining and operating large real estate assets extremely difficult.

As the world’s economies locked down in the face of the pandemic in 2020, oil prices collapsed to levels not seen since the early 1990s. But this turned out to be a temporary phenomenon, for when economies fired back up in 2021, global oil production could not ramp up with them. Prices gradually rose until late 2021, when Vladimir Putin’s armored columns began massing on the Ukrainian border. Another Black Swan had come home to roost.

The resulting war drove oil and gas prices up sharply – $102.52 per barrel (pb) as of Friday, April 22. This is far from a record high: that happened in August 2008, when a combination of the botched war in Iraq, strong Chinese demand, Russia’s attack on Georgia, and the onset of the Global Financial Crisis briefly drove prices to a record $151 per barrel. But that only underscores the point: It’s the volatility, not the actual price, that’s making life a misery for those who need to procure, manage or hedge energy costs.

EverSmart Energy, Powered by SiteWatch. It works. It’s a product, not a project. Like all of Microshare’s Smart Building solutions, it is quick to deploy, starts producing data immediately, and will transform your energy portfolio by lowering costs, identifying inefficiencies, and producing the carbon footprint data your Chief Sustainability Officer and activist investors are demanding.

Michael Moran | CMO, Director of Risk & Sustainability | MMoran@microshare.io