Microsoft Brings Smart Buildings to Seattle

By Dan Sytman, Senior Public Relations Manager, Citizenship & Public Affairs

Microsoft Senior Director Bill Mitchel has a great post today about using Microsoft technology to reduce buildings’ carbon footprints while making those buildings cost less to operate. Bill, who works in Microsoft’s Worldwide Public Sector Division, helped organized an announcement by Microsoft Chief Environmental Strategist Rob Bernard, Seattle Mayor Mike McGuinn, representatives from the University of Washington, the US Commerce Department and others, about the“High Performance Buildings Pilot Project.” Mayor McGinn’s office describes the project as a “partnership between the City of Seattle, Microsoft and the Seattle 2030 District, aimed at reducing power consumption through real-time data analysis of Seattle buildings.”

 

Today at the UW School of Medicine: (From left) Brian Geller, Executive Director, Seattle 2030 District, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and Microsoft Chief Sustainability Officer Rob Bernard

This pilot was inspired by one that we implemented on Microsoft’s Redmond campus. As Bill writes, “It used Big Data to achieve energy savings of 10 percent, which we anticipate will be surpassed by the Seattle pilot with energy and maintenance savings between 10 and 25 percent.” We’re looking forward to seeing the program work on an even wider scale – across over two million square feet of commercial real estate in downtown Seattle.