Case Study: Carnegie Mellon University achieves 30% energy savings and improved operational efficiency with Microsoft Power BI

University Improves Operational Efficiency, Cuts Energy Consumption by 30 Percent with BI Solution

Carnegie Mellon University needed a centralized, easy-to-use way to monitor and optimize complex building systems across multiple facilities. To gain real-time insight into hundreds of sensors and disparate control systems, CMU worked with OSIsoft’s PI System and adopted Microsoft Power BI (Power BI for Office 365) alongside Azure and SQL Server infrastructure to bring integrated BI and cloud analytics into its Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics.

Using Microsoft Power BI to visualize PI System and Azure-hosted data, CMU created dashboards, natural-language queries (Power Q&A), and shared reports that exposed faulty equipment and energy patterns. The solution delivered measurable impact—about a 30% reduction in energy consumption in CMU’s laboratory and similar 30% plug-load savings for a Pittsburgh bank—while enabling new contracts (including monitoring 20+ DoD buildings) and broader operational insight.

Carnegie Mellon University

Bertrand Lasternas

Researcher