Demand Management Institute (DMI)
After two years of classes and acquiring engineering skills, I completed my first six month co-op at Demand Management Institute as a Mechanical Engineering Co-op. The role was consulting based which required both technical and interpersonal skills while handling the quick-paced nature of the job. By working with multiple teams on a plethora projects, the breadth of experience I got was an invaluable experience. The introduction to the energy industry was useful, because it provided me with a sense of worth and accomplishment for bettering the world around me.
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Problem Statement:
Develop a powerful calculator to highlight all the potential savings while also having a customer friendly UI that is both accurate and easy to understand by a store owner.
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Overview:
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One of the main long-term projects I worked on was developing an Excel/VBA based calculator on a contract for Eversource. The calculator was purposed to calculate the energy and rebate savings from outfitting any New England grocery store with any of the 30+ energy efficiency upgrade programs offered by Eversource. Anything from the freezer condensers, destratification fans, to the RTU floor space heating/cooling where considered for upgrades, replacements, and automated control packages. The heating loads required 3-D energy modeling in eQuest alongside a bin-model analysis of the TMY3 weather data for the nearest weather station to the grocery store. This dense data had to be condensed down into easy to understand outputs such as payback periods, BTUs/hr, and dollar incentives.
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Actions:
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Research all ECMs (Energy Conservation Measures) that are offered by Eversource by sourcing case studies operated by trusted third party energy companies and Eversource themselves. If not available, use the Massachusetts Technical Reference Manual for estimation purposes.
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Learn VBA to be able to use the full power of bin model analysis. With VBA abilities, the size of the file would be too large to be transferable to store owners (>2 GB). VBA can also be used to create locking capabilities, page hiding capabilities, user entry error control, custom presetting of anticipated store detailing.
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Need to create a product that can be used easily by someone with no energy experience or exposure. The target audience is grocery store owners, who may not be able to troubleshoot or enter the most accurate inputs. Therefore, many controls for possible entries and detailed instructions were created for the user.
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Manage progress with Gantt chart shared with Eversource engineers. Must also regularly meet with Eversource engineers to tweak features and gain any needed data or information.
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Create 50+ sheets of both data compilation, VLOOKUP storage, ECM calculation, and customer facing result tabulation.
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Create a product that looks like an Eversource product in a visually pleasing format.
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Results:​
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Before the expiration of my contract, a full draft of the calculator was able to be completed in beta form.
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The next phase was for the Eversource engineering team to put it to all possible uses to try to find any bugs. I extended my contract with DMI part time while at school as to help smoothen the transition and selfishly get to see out the product I made. Throughout the duration of my extension, no bugs were found in the code or the design of the calculator.
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Eversource ended up fulfilling the multi-million dollar contract which was very rewarding to land. The calculator has a measure life of 10 years before it will need revision, so it will still be functional in 2032 and will be used by thousands of grocery stores throughout the New England region.
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