The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recognizes Sandia National Laboratories for achieving DOE 50001 Ready recognition at its headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico and its second principal laboratory in Livermore, California.
Using Executive Order 14057 (Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability) to guide their environmental stewardship efforts, Sandia leveraged 50001 Ready to support their sustainability goals, including carbon emissions reduction, energy savings, energy security, and energy resiliency. In addition, DOE Order 436.1A, which establishes a performance-based approach to implementing sustainability at DOE operations, states that buildings over 25,000 gross square feet must be designed to net-zero. This order further supported Sandia’s energy conservation efforts, explicitly recommending that sites become 50001 Ready or certified to ISO 50001.
Developing energy performance improvements and sitewide energy models for significant energy use analysis helped propel Sandia towards its institutional energy management goals, in addition to supporting its existing metrics and reporting activities. Sandia also indicated significant improvements to their communications between their different buildings and teams. The focus on significant energy uses led to increased communications between building operators and customers, who now have conversations about potential energy conservation measures. Different groups now work together to examine different buildings, possible efficiency improvements, and energy savings within the spaces.
A key component leading to the Sandia sites’ 50001 Ready designation was the tightening of their documentation protocol. In implementing their new EnMS, Sandia staff uncovered some gaps in the documentation of their previous system and were able to respond by eradicating those gaps and improving their data collection processes. Thorough documentation is essential to pinpointing both areas of success and areas of improvement, and the Sandia sites were thus able to gain greater insight into what they were already doing well and what changes they could make to yield better results.
In implementing the 50001 Ready program, Sandia witnessed a number of benefits at their participating sites. These benefits were not only energy-related but also fiscal and team-oriented in nature, with staff citing cost reduction and increased interdepartmental collaboration among the advantages of engaging with 50001 Ready. Other benefits named were increased energy efficiency (due to the promotion of best practices across departments), reduced emissions, and progress toward net-zero goals.
DOE’s 50001 Ready program, managed by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO), provides a self-paced, no-cost way for organizations to build a culture of structured energy improvement that leads to deeper and more sustained energy savings.
Learn more about energy management at Sandia National Laboratories.