kWh Countdown
Ventura County Regional Energy Alliance (VCREA) and Community Environmental Council (CEC-SB)
Project POC: April Price
Contact: aprice at cecmail.org ; (805) 963-0583 *101
Abraxas Energy Consulting was awarded a contract by the VCREA and CEC-SB to provide comprehensive energy assessments and benchmarking services for municipal buildings within the City of Lompoc and commercial properties in the City of Lompoc and County of Ventura. Since the program started, Abraxas has completed audits on more than 36 buildings totaling 704,000 square feet.
The energy audits serve to provide the businesses with short and long-term frameworks on the most effective ways to change operations and invest in more energy efficient systems. Building owners and managers have the option to select which measures they would like to optimally save businesses money and increase revenue streams. The audit will identify the greatest cost-effective range of energy efficient measures, from no cost/low cost measures to large capital investment projects, as well as identify simple operations and maintenance (O&M) improvements that can be made at their facility.
Throughout the program, Abraxas has worked alongside program leads to develop innovative recruitment methods and procedures to increase interest with potential program participates. Recruitment efforts have included qualified businesses across all business sectors from commercial, retail, hospitality, manufacturing, medical, and more.
City of Union City, CA
Project POC: Eric Nyenhuis, Director, Engineering & Development, Southland Energy
Contact: enyenhuis at southlandind.com, 858-210-0940
As a subcontractor to Southland Energy, Abraxas completed an ASHRAE Level 2 and an ASHRAE Level 3 audit of the twenty-one municipal buildings of Union City, totaling 185,000 square feet.
The energy assessment began with a utility bill analysis and a review of building mechanical drawings. During the onsite inspection, we interviewed site personnel, inspected lighting, HVAC and other energy using equipment, and conducted measurements. Once we had collected all the information, we returned to our offices, developed ideas for ECMs, and after vetting them with our client, Southland Energy, we developed the chosen ECMs for our report. We estimated energy savings using bin-simulations and other spread sheet calculations.
The focus of the work was on BAS control upgrades for the campus that contains a central chiller and boiler plant. There were also ECMs associated with lighting, retro-commissioning, replacing package units and boilers, and several solar photovoltaic systems.
As part of the retro-commissioning effort, Abraxas identified 233 issues which included deficiencies related to BAS mapping, sensor calibration, AHU economizer operation, central plant lockout and setpoint strategies, equipment scheduling, VAV damper control and VAV water valve control.
Total energy cost reduction from the project was estimated at $360,000 annually. As solar and BAS upgrades are expensive, the total project payback was longer than we are used to, at about 15 years.
City of Milpitas, CA
Project POC: Mary Wyand, Project Development Engineer, Honeywell
(Mary now works for Encore Renewable Energy)
Contact: marytwyand at gmail.com, 802-861-3023
As a subcontractor to Honeywell, Abraxas completed an ASHRAE Level 2 audit of the seven of the largest municipal buildings of Milpitas totally about 315,000 square feet.
The energy assessment began with a utility bill analysis and a review of building mechanical drawings. During the onsite inspection, we interviewed site personnel, inspected lighting, HVAC and other energy using equipment, and conducted measurements. Once we had collected all the information, we returned to our offices, developed ideas for ECMs, and after vetting them with our client, Honeywell, we developed the chosen ECMs for our report. We estimated energy savings using bin-simulations and other spread sheet calculations.
The ECMs included LED retrofits, lighting control, reconfiguring the data center to be more energy efficient, cooling tower modifications, replacing HVAC controls, DHW demand control pumping, and replacing aging package units.
Total energy cost reduction from the project was estimated at $170,000 annually. PG&E was to supply over $90,000 in incentives. The total project payback was only about 3 years.
This audit was done as part of a proposal to do a performance contract with the City of Milpitas. Honeywell was shortlisted for interviews, and due to concerns wholly unrelated to this project, Honeywell dropped their West Coast operations before we could attend the meeting with the City. Engie won the job, and we were later hired by Engie to assist with their measurement and verification efforts at the City.