Spotlight on Tim Twomey
“I have one agenda: reduce water and energy consumption and use them responsibly.”
This is the mantra of Tim Twomey, a contractor who serves as the regional energy manager in the west at AT&T, and someone who is passionate about energy efficiency. When Twomey isn’t helping accelerate AT&T sustainability and energy efficiency initiatives, he’s busy helping his neighbors implement energy-saving projects in northern California where he lives.
Twomey is one of 13 AT&T regional energy leads who works with over 200 “Energy Champions” across our corporate real estate organization. His work started several years ago, beginning with AT&T’s Trade Street location in San Diego – one of the largest energy users in the company’s western real estate portfolio. According to Twomey, “with energy efficiency efforts, it’s obvious to focus on the big things – new equipment, new technology – but if someone gave me $1 billion to work on buildings in the U.S., I would go after the simple, small stuff.” Twomey believes others looking to implement energy efficiency projects stand to see the greatest impact if they address the building’s envelope, HVAC, and lighting systems, noting that “If you want to reduce expenses, investing in the infrastructure you already have makes sense.”
Twomey has shown that the systematic approach works. Using insulation, HVAC and lighting as examples, Twomey explains: “If you turn on the lights, it gets hotter. Then you need to increase the HVAC. If you bring in outside air to cool instead, is the HVAC turning off? Sometimes no, because the control systems are outdated or not working properly. Everything is inter-connected.”
This isn’t to say Twomey does not see benefits in the “big things.” He thinks about those too. For example, he suggests doing a life-cycle assessment when purchasing equipment. “We do a total cost of ownership when buying a car, why can’t we do that for a building?” And with the help of Twomey and other regional energy managers, AT&T is doing just that.
Recently, thanks to the efforts of Twomey and the AT&T team, AT&T was recognized as an Energy Champion at San Diego Gas & Electric’s Showcase conference. Twomey is quick to recognize the great work of the San Diego team that made the award possible. “The success of these projects really is a team effort.” This team’s dedicated work to improve efficiency over the last six years has resulted in 2,187,012-kilowatt hours (kWh) in annualized savings, equivalent to removing 317 passenger vehicles from the road for a year and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by over 1,500 metric tons.
We would like to congratulate Tim and the San Diego team for their great work in helping AT&T progress towards its sustainability goals. To learn more about AT&T Services San Diego and AT&T meeting the call for sustainability, see the SDG&E and AT&T Services San Diego case study.
