Jul 29, 2011
Project Overview
Our client was Yeshiva University in New York City. The university had a crack facilities department, the best we have ever seen. However, every building has savings potential. They desired to track their utility bills with Metrix, our utility bill tracking system. We were there to train them in using the software.
The Problem
But in addition to the software training, our salesmen had promised our client that in 4 hours of investigating their HVAC systems and controls, that we could find over $25,000 in energy savings. We had never promised this before. We had to perform.
The Solution
We spent our first few hours on the HVAC controls, looking for irregularities. When we found them, and we did, we then visited the offending air handling units. We took manual temperature measurements to ensure the HVAC controls were accurately reporting the problems. Using bin data calculations we determined the energy waste from the issues we uncovered.
The Result
We found approximately $160,000 in annual energy savings, which far exceeded our guarantee of $25,000. All of the energy savings was HVAC related. Some of the problems we found were corrected while we were present, that is, at zero cost. The maintenance workers were following us around, investigating the issues immediately as soon as they were uncovered. Some of the problems required reprogramming of the controls, and required calling in a contractor. The project paid for itself in less than 1 month. The energy conservation measures involved reprogramming a poor free cooling strategy on two air handlers, repairing leaky pre-heat valves which were preheating outside air all year, repairing economizer actuators, and implementing cold deck resets on four air handlers.
Benefits
The facility was able to cut their energy costs by approximately $160,000 annually at virtually no cost to implement the measures.