Case Study: University of South Carolina achieves 15% utility bill reduction and $887,979 savings with Brightly Software Energy Management

University Cuts Utility Costs by 15% After Implementing an Energy Management System

The University of South Carolina in Columbia — responsible for 212 buildings and roughly 10.9 million sq. ft. serving about 30,721 students — faced an outdated, manual system for tracking utility costs and consumption. Cecil Sheppard, Supervisor of High Voltage and Utilities, needed a scalable way to monitor usage, allocate costs, and identify inefficiencies across campus.

Implementing Dude Solutions Energy Management gave the team daily reporting, sub‑metering and analytics to pinpoint poor-performing buildings, allocate energy costs to the correct departments, and document billing errors. Within one year USC realized $887,979.68 in savings (a 15% reduction in average annual utility bills) and recovered $82,979 from erroneous charges.

University of South Carolina

Cecil Sheppard

Utility Manager