IBM has just won a contract with the United States Federal Government to develop and install smart energy-efficient building technology in 50 of the governments highest energy-consuming buildings. The US General Services Administration (GSA) contract with IBM will feature cloud-based technology to improve efficiency and save taxpayers up to $15 million each year.

The new system will allow for building energy consumption to be monitored all over the country and have the information streamlined to one source for analysis and control. The goal is to cut government building energy consumption by at least 30% before the year 2015. Under the contract IBM will monitor and stream the data which will be viewed in real-time.

GSA Acting Public Buildings Commissioner Linda Chero comments on the contract to bring green energy to government facilities:

“The development of this industry-leading smart building system begins a new era in how GSA manages our nation’s public buildings and will prove the feasibility of this technology for the larger industry,”

“This program connects existing building technologies in new ways to improve building efficiency in over 32 million square feet of real estate. Awarding this contract benefits taxpayers, as it will reduce maintenance and operating costs of the federal building portfolio — saving taxpayers an estimated $15 million annually.”

IBM Vice President of Industry Solutions Dave Bartlett comments on green building technology:

“We are at a tipping point in terms of advancing the greening of our buildings and making them smarter,”

“When you look at buildings holistically, with end-to-end visibility across all systems, you can more clearly see the connections, the interactions, and opportunities for efficiency among the various systems. Using analytics, we can make better decisions about how to best visualize and optimize these systems. The data exists – it’s a matter of understanding and responding to what the data is telling us, and that’s what we’re helping GSA to do.”

Take a look at this video from the GSA on smart buildings: