Solutions
Altura serves as a trusted advisor to clients implementing building energy and sustainability initiatives across the planning, design, construction, and operational phases of the building lifecycle.
Performance
Delivery
New and Existing Building Commissioning
Altura’s Performance Delivery service takes “connected commissioning” to the next level.
Since 2013, Altura has pioneered the development and use of advanced data analytics tools, including automated functional testing and fault detection and diagnostics (FDD), to achieve peak performance for new and existing facilities.
Advantages of Altura’s Performance Delivery approach for New Construction:
- Optimized BAS Design & Execution: Peer-reviewed controls designs with best-in-class sequences of operations from schematic through construction documents. Virtual controls bench testing prior to field implementation. Guidance from in-house IT and cybersecurity experts to establish secure BMS networks during construction.
- Accelerated Project Schedule: Enhanced equipment startup process to identify and resolve issues in real-time as systems and equipment come online – significantly reducing on-site testing hours, trade friction, and handover delays.
- 100% Equipment Testing: Augments sampling with automated functional testing and fault detection & diagnostics (FDD) on 100% of connected assets, catching systemic performance issues before handover, decreasing testing time, and eliminating construction activity conflicts during tests.
- Performance-Driven Acceptance: Zone, equipment, and system performance are measured and compared to acceptance criteria as an indicator of readiness for project turnover and owner acceptance.
- Seamless Handover: A data-rich performance baseline and digital asset register are ready for use by operational teams on day 1.
- Lower Delivery Costs: Capital projects are delivered on time and on budget with fewer schedule risks and costly change orders.
- Enhanced Warranty: Drives increased accountability from construction trades and integrates the owner’s facility team through a monitoring-based commissioning approach. Our analytics/FDD platform continuously evaluates performance through operational and seasonal changes, allowing for tuning and root cause investigation with design and construction teams.
Advantages of Altura’s Performance Delivery approach for Existing Facilities:
- Data-driven Commissioning: Delivers a consistent platform for retro (RCx), monitoring-based (MBCx), and ongoing/operational (OCx) commissioning.
- Continuous Energy Savings: Automated FDD tools prevent ongoing “performance drift,” reducing typical energy costs by 10% – 20% or more.
- Predictive Maintenance: Catches mechanical degradation, short-cycling, and sensor drift before equipment fails completely, extending asset lifespans and reducing emergency repairs.
- Facilities Engagement:Deep collaboration with facilities teams to deliver tailored solutions with measurable positive impacts.
- Improved Occupant Comfort:Real-time monitoring of airflow, temperature, and humidity resolves hot/cold complaints and maintains optimal indoor environmental quality.
- Comprehensive Controls Solutions: Our MSI experts map out solutions for ongoing management of enterprise control systems.
- Detailed Energy Reporting:Tracks energy consumption and emissions automatically, simplifying compliance with local building performance standards and sustainability certifications.
Commissioning Programs
Altura partners with leading organizations to scale building performance programs across large, complex portfolios and campuses.
Our Commissioning Program approach integrates engineering, commissioning, analytics, controls, and operational expertise to improve building performance at scale, while supporting future development and capital planning. We work across a range of building types and operational environments to prioritize opportunities that improve energy efficiency, operating costs, resiliency, occupant satisfaction, and long-term asset value.
Advantages of Altura’s Commissioning Program approach:
- Scaled, data-driven platform for new construction (NCx), retro (RCx), monitoring-based (MBCx), and ongoing/operational (OCx) commissioning.
- Integrates enterprise standards, capital planning, energy efficiency, building controls, commissioning, deferred maintenance, and occupant comfort into a centralized, programmatic approach.
- Analytics-supported performance testing enables 100% testing of key equipment in new construction and existing facilities.
- Virtual bench testing and continuous optimization of building automation systems improves controllability and overall performance.
- Our Master Systems Integration (MSI) experts map out solutions for ongoing management of enterprise control systems across new and existing facilities.
Enterprise Building Automation Systems
Master Systems Integration (MSI)
Successful smart building programs start with flexible, reliable, and highly integrated controls architectures.
As building complexity increases with the rise in connected technologies, facility operators are challenged to maintain optimal control of their buildings due to fragmented, poorly-integrated systems.
Altura’s MSI service helps facility operators bridge this gap by turning standalone building automation systems into high performing, enterprise controls platforms.
Advantages of Altura’s Master Systems Integration approach:
- Enhanced Integration: Altura serves as a trusted advisor through the design, construction, and turnover phases to improve integration of IT and operational technologies (OT), while managing network security, vendor coordination, and implementation.
- Unified Data: Our approach delivers a unified and normalized data layer between HVAC, lighting, security, access control, fire protection, and other critical systems.
- Vendor Neutrality: By decoupling the software front-end from the field hardware layer, we empower owners to operate multi-vendor, hardware-agnostic buildings. This foundation enables vendor competition, lower lifecycle costs, and higher service quality.
- Network Performance & Cybersecurity: With deep engineering expertise in networking, IT, and BAS, Altura helps operators collaborate with their IT and vendor partners to solve complex network and cybersecurity issues.
- Scaled Energy Efficiency: Well-integrated systems enable scalable energy efficiency opportunities across the entire campus (e.g. access control badging to dynamically control HVAC, lighting, and ventilation in real time across multiple buildings).
Analytics
SkySpark Deployment and Management
Experience a deeper level of visibility, accountability, and quality control of your building’s performance with SkySpark and Altura Analytics.
The SkySpark platform is widely used in buildings around the world, totalling well over 1 billion square feet, delivering open, scalable energy analytics applications. Altura was an early adopter and is a leading provider of services surrounding the implementation, integration, and optimization of SkySpark. We are a Value Added Reseller for the software and have over 100 million square feet of buildings with active analytics in place that we manage.
We leverage Project Haystack to deliver industry standard, interoperable metadata tagging, unlocking the power of the data across multiple platforms. And by using an open, standardized and scalable data model, we are able to deliver value-added applications that feed into existing and new business processes through analytics and fault detection, enhanced reporting, and predictive maintenance.
Our services range from basic assistance with IT connectivity and data imports to implementing sparks and building custom applications to address client workflow needs.
Key custom SkySpark applications include:
- Dedicated data import and database management tools
- Standardized point and equipment naming and tagging libraries
- Extensive libraries of rule-based and predictive analytics
- Machine learning performance baseline modeling
- M&V reporting
- Issue, ticket and project tracking apps
- Utility billing and customer recharge management tools
- Asset management data delivery and validation tools
Click here to request information about SkySpark license fees
Analytics-Based Energy Management
Sophisticated energy management programs require a connected, real time data approach to respond to today’s building-related challenges.
We have developed a suite of Energy Management Information System tools and processes that are highly flexible and customizable to meet the bespoke needs of your building portfolio.
Advantages of Altura’s Analytics approach:
- Data-Driven: Scalable analytics platform for new construction (NCx), retro (RCx), monitoring-based (MBCx), and ongoing/operational (OCx) commissioning.
- Capital Planning: Drives more informed and impactful capital planning and project implementation.
- Continuous Energy Savings: BAS optimization and automated FDD tools prevent ongoing “performance drift,” reducing typical energy costs by 10% – 20% or more.
- Custom Dashboards: Portfolio and building level energy and resource dashboards with fully integrated meters.
- Machine Learning: Leverages performance baselines and rule-based, predictive analytics to predict energy use and detect anomalies.
- Utility Billing: Automated tools for utility billing and customer recharge.
- Issue Tracking & Resolution: Issue tracking and automated work order management CMMS tools to streamline operator workflows.
Facility Performance Management
The greatest value in a building analytics program is in the integration with and improvement of human capital and team workflows.
Altura has built numerous tools on top of the SkySpark platform to deliver the valuable information to the right people at the right time and track activities from issue identification through on-going performance.
We can cost-effectively customize an Energy Management Information System for your building(s) with highly configurable views and automated email and dashboard reporting. We have also leveraged advanced data science and machine learning techniques to automate the process of generating custom baselines and M&V benchmarks for your building. You can now view building performance against smart baselines that are continuously calculated based on pre-project and post-project operating data and weather.
Energy Program
Management
Energy Program Management
We turn ambitious energy and carbon goals into performance and ROI-driven programs.
To achieve long-term energy and sustainability targets, building owners and operators need a programmatic approach that is scalable, adaptable, and responsive to the evolving needs of their portfolio.
Altura’s Energy Program Management service provides a structured approach to developing, funding, and executing energy and decarbonization projects, while building the capacity within your organization to ensure performance and financial benefits persist over time.
Advantages of Altura’s Energy Program Management service:
- Utility Benchmarking: Establishes building and portfolio baselines for energy, water, greenhouse gas emissions, and utility costs compared to leading industry benchmarks.
- Capital Planning: Turns stranded facility data into actionable, capital-ready project plans backed by business cases to secure project financing.
- Enterprise Standards: Establishes operational, design, and retrofit standards to drive consistent and results-driven outcomes portfolio-wide.
- Project Implementation Oversight: Delivers detailed engineering scoping and bid packages that streamline procurement and project implementation.
- Increased Resource Capacity: Altura serves as an extension of your team, enabling building operators to stay focused on their core responsibilities.
- Active Stakeholder Engagement: Drives long-term program momentum by aligning cross-functional stakeholders around shared goals, incentives and objectives.
- Performance Reporting: Provides clear and consistent performance reporting on energy, environmental, and financial metrics.
