From high tech engineering to consumer goods, Godrej is one of India’s largest industrial conglomerates. Recently the company decided to implement a more energy efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) solution in its Godrej Bhavan facility in Mumbai, India as part of the company's focus on creating carbon neutral, zero waste, water positive and energy efficient businesses.
The project was no easy task since the building was a 46,000 square foot facility, constructed in 1972, and the architectural drawings and building plans were no longer available. Combine the historical architecture and aging building with the inherent challenges of retrofitting a fully staffed operational building, and the task promised to be a challenge.
Godrej officials wanted to replace the building's existing cooling system without disrupting business operations at the facility. This goal was made even more challenging by the fact that there were only two air handling units (AHUs) to cool the entire building – a limitation that also meant the individual floors at Godrej Bhavan could not have separate temperature settings.
A Unique Solution Provides Temperature Control for Each Floor in the Building
Officials at Godrej Bhavan began by replacing the existing inefficient cooling system with energy-efficient water-cooled screw chillers. The system retrofits were carried out during non-working hours to avoid inconveniencing the occupants while they went about their work.
However, to provide customizable temperature comfort conditions on each floor, it was necessary to install air handling units (AHUs) at every level of the building, but the building’s original design had not left a place to locate the AHUs. This issue was resolved by installing I-beams in the masonry shaft and then attaching horizontal metal plates to create artificial floors, which allowed the new AHUs to be installed on each level.
To ensure continuity of cooling, both systems (old and new) were operated simultaneously during the change-over stage. To maximize the new air-conditioning system’s efficiency, reliability and serviceability, a Trane Tracer Summit building automation system was also installed. In addition, an annual maintenance contract with Trane now ensures smooth and uninterrupted operation of all HVAC systems.
New System Leads to Reduced Costs and LEED Certification
In addition to creating a more comfortable environment for workers, the project has reduced annual energy costs for the Godrej Bhavan facility by 15 percent. On February 15, 2011, the building was certified LEED Gold in the existing buildings category by the United States Building Council. To achieve its LEED certification status, the project met strict requirements regarding sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality and innovation in design.
In the last post I talked about how a building control strategy works in tandem with a building automation system (BAS) to operate a building efficiently and optimally. In this post I'll talk about the different approaches for new construction versus existing buildings, and the recommended approaches to ongoing building maintenance.
New buildings versus retrofits
When it comes to building performance, a common mistake people make is to assume that newer buildings are automatically more efficient than older ones. Even for new buildings, it is critical to take inventory of how all of the equipment in the building is controlled and analyze performance to determine if adjustments are necessary.
When new buildings are built, often the engineers that designed and oversaw construction of the building are only tasked with making sure the BAS meets the design specifications and is functionally operational.
Assuming the system was properly configured and operating well at the start, it may soon grow quickly out of sync from its initial configuration.
For this reason, many design engineers will work side by side with BAS engineers and technicians during the construction phase to make sure the building automation equipment, software and systems are properly installed. This isn't always the case, however, and operators of newer buildings should be mindful to get periodic energy audits to help detect potential problems.
For retrofits, it's important to take a critical look at all existing building equipment and how it is controlled. There may have been significant improvements in how to set up and properly optimize the equipment since its original installation date.
Preventative Maintenance and Recommissioning
While continuous monitoring would be the optimal solution to truly maximize building performance, at a minimum the building's systems should be checked on a monthly or quarterly basis as part of a preventative maintenance schedule.
Any type of preventative maintenance approach is better than none. Ignoring basic preventative maintenance is taking a costly "run-to-fail" approach. After all, anything that is mechanical in nature is going to require service and will at some point fail. To think it won't is foolish. With a run-to-fail approach, you have no control over when that costly failure occurs.
For larger retrofit jobs, a building owner might have an engineering consultant manage the project. However, in many cases, the building owner will consult directly with a provider, like Trane, whose experts review the building and its systems, provide options and recommendations for updating and optimizing BAS equipment, as well as properly tuning the control system, including equipment sequencing.
Even doing a simple check-up or tuning of existing controls can do a lot of good. In fact, building operators can potentially save 10 to 20 percent on their energy consumption just by tuning up controls, correcting simple problems such as overwritten schedules and fixing sequencing issues.
Taking it a step further, existing buildings may want to consider "recommissioning" older equipment.
Recommissioining is going back and commissioning building systems to operate at their original design specifications. From the time a piece of equipment is installed, it begins to degrade in performance. If new equipment isn't properly set up to begin with, it may not be living up to its performance promises.
Recommissioning returns the equipment as close to its original design specifications, and, done correctly, will bring an entire system into better balance to improve overall building performance.
Higher level service agreements employ continuous recommissioning, but all building owners should include periodic recommissioning to maximize the performance and lifespan of equipment. Proper maintenance that employs preventative and predictive maintenance practices will likely not need recommissioning, but even buildings built in the last one or two years can suffer from poor performance from their building systems if those systems aren't monitored and maintained.
Most commercial buildings today have a building automation (BAS) system installed. While these systems are designed to help a building operator effectively manage a building's heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, the simple presence of a control system doesn't guarantee good performance.
Beyond installing the control system software, effective building operators should develop a control strategy to ensure the software runs equipment in a manner that meets the building’s comfort requirements and minimizes energy consumption.
Setting up your control systems correctly
It is critical to make sure you have your system set up correctly. Unfortunately, there are some pretty common mistakes that many building operators make when controlling their building. The most common mistake is scheduling air handlers early in the morning before building spaces are occupied, and running them late into the night after all employees have gone home. Some buildings even operate air handlers 24-7 with no justifiable need to maintain the building’s conditioned space at occupied temperature levels.
Another basic mistake that is commonly made is failing to adjust temperature set points for building occupancy. It is commonplace in residential settings that people might roll back their home thermostat at night to allow a cooler temperature while they are sleeping. Yet many building operators fail to employ similar energy reduction strategies in their commercial spaces.
In addition to fixing the above two problems, properly configuring a building's control systems will also allow for more customized control of the building environment, such as having different temperature set points or operation schedules for different parts of the building. This is especially important in the case of a building that has multiple tenants that each have their own comfort and occupancy requirements .
Fine tuning the system
For facilities with multiple chillers, another important aspect of the control strategy for maximizing energy efficiency is properly sequencing how the equipment operates. This is especially true if the building has different sized chillers, or chillers of varying efficiency and capacity.
For example, in some situations it may be a good idea to ”base load” a primary chiller because it has the highest efficiency before engaging subsequent chillers that may operate at a lesser efficiency, while in other cases the optimal situation may actually be to operate multiple chillers at “part loads” because the partial load efficiencies may be the best way to minimize energy use.
Energy consultants can help analyze the performance of equipment and tune the control system to function optimally for the building's configuration. Advanced control software is also available that can detect how a building is operated and make adjustments to continually optimize the performance based upon the building's use and the performance of the installed equipment.
Up next: In the next post I'll discuss the differences between new buildings and retrofits and the value of preventive maintenance and recommissioning.
Long before the information superhighway made the world more inter-connected, transportation advancements – trains, automobiles and airplanes – brought people together and gave them access to new and remote parts of the world.
Today, people are busier than ever, and transportation hubs like bus and train terminals and airports are open 24-7 to shuttle people to their destinations.
Running these types of operations around the clock comes at a significant cost in terms of energy consumption, as facilities must be kept well lit and climate controlled at all hours for passenger comfort.
The Evolution of Today's High Performance Airports
Over time, the business mission of airports has evolved from a no frills experience to a high tech, efficient transportation system. Increased passenger and air cargo demand is forcing airports to invest heavily in infrastructure improvements.
In fact, as much as $90 billion in renovation and construction investments are needed to keep pace with the anticipated growth in demand in the United States.
For example, the San Diego International Airport is currently undergoing a significant expansion and renovation that includes custom Trane air handler units capable of moving a combined total of volume of 434,000 cubic feet of air per minute (CFM). The units also use the Trane Catalytic Air Cleaning System (TCACS) to improve indoor air quality by controlling the infiltration of dust, jet engine exhaust and other airborne contaminants common to airport environments.
The focus on investing in airport infrastructure is global. China has built more than a half-dozen airports in the past few years, and is anticipated to build 97 more by 2020. It also will expand and modernize 144 existing airports in this same period.
Along the way, consumer awareness of the environmental impact of the airline industry has grown, causing many airport operators to look for ways to improve sustainability and become greener in their operations - namely through efforts to develop energy efficient high performance buildings.
Trane, a leading global provider of indoor comfort systems and a brand of Ingersoll Rand, works with transportation terminal operators to provide solutions and controls that deliver a comfortable indoor environment while reducing operating costs.
As airport operators look to make critical infrastructure investments, they are turning to a high performance buildings approach to ensure that facility improvements meet their needs while reinforcing their business mission.
As budgets tighten, school districts across the country are looking for ways to lower costs. For many districts, the cost savings of investments in energy efficiency upgrades can be significant enough to help districts avoid cutting back on staff or reducing school-funded programs to meet budget demands.
In one such school district, education leaders at Rock Creek Unified School District (USD) 323 in Westmoreland, Kan., expect recently completed energy efficiency upgrades to save the district nearly $154,000 a year while enhancing the teaching and learning environment.
Assessment and planning
For school districts, the key to successfully implementing efficiency conservation measures (ECMs) is to first assess the current performance of systems and plan for improvements that will reinforce the organizational mission while providing the best return on investment.
Prior to selecting the appropriate ECMs for the district, administrators and board of education members directed completion of a formal audit and building assessments. Based on the findings, administrators and board members selected the ECMs that best met the district’s upgrade needs while improving energy and operational efficiency.
The improvements at Rock Creek USD 323 were funded with a performance contract which allowed the district to use future energy and operational savings to finance infrastructure improvements up front. Performance contracting is a funding option that provides measurable business results to support strategic objectives.
Going under the hood - improvements at Rock Creek USD 323
Improvements included lighting upgrades in classrooms and hallways in all district buildings. High efficiency heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems were implemented to improve indoor air quality, increase ventilation and provide more comfortable classroom temperatures. Automated controls were installed to maximize efficiency of both the lighting and the HVAC. Plumbing was updated with low-flow fixtures.
Improvements in the junior/senior high school building included replacing an end-of-life air-cooled chiller and replacing the original pneumatic controls with a direct digital control system. The new direct digital controls monitor manages all HVAC systems in the building. It allows for uniform temperature control and provides the ability to schedule occupied and unoccupied room temperature set points for energy savings.
At Westmoreland Elementary, the old steam boiler, steam radiators and window air conditioning units were replaced with a high-efficiency variable refrigerant flow system. Each classroom received an indoor heating/cooling unit which provides a quiet, comfortable learning environment.
The split system HVAC units in the 1993 classroom additions were replaced with new high efficiency units. A gym ventilation system was added to allow for cooling and ventilating on a mild day. A direct digital control system was installed to control, monitor, and schedule all new and existing HVAC equipment.
Upgrades to the Westmoreland Elementary building also included replacing all windows with double-pane high-efficiency windows and replacing all doors.
Retrofits at St. George Elementary included upgrading the existing HVAC system and its digital controls. Staff training further ensures that the system will run at optimum performance.
The improvements represent a major step in transforming district facilities into high performance buildings that tie to the schools’ educational mission.
It's the situation every building owner wants to avoid –they've invested in new heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, and yet building performance is suffering.
It may seem like an unlikely scenario, yet it happens more than you might think. The fact is, a poorly designed building that is effectively maintained will actually outperform a well designed building that is poorly operated.
Given this reality, why would you not put into place high performance maintenance and operating practices?
The value of adopting highly effective operating and maintenance practices
So, what are the best operating and maintenance practices that will help building owners avoid the problem of under-performing building systems?
The first step is getting away from the "run-to-fail" approach. When it comes to maintenance of key equipment and building systems, owners should shift to an approach that is proactive, using preventative and predictive practices.
Run-to-fail, or "don't fix it until it's broken,” is a reactive approach. To truly achieve high performance, building owners must elevate their practices by getting proactive when it comes to maintenance. Consider the cost of an emergency repair to a critical building system that disrupts the intended use of the building and it is easy to see why run-to-fail is really a sprint toward failure.
Using predictive strategies, on the other hand, allows building owners to plan maintenance around critical building functions and minimize disruptions to the day-to-day operation of the building, saving time and money while improving tenant satisfaction.
The Trane High Performance Buildings approach starts with aligning the maintenance strategies for a building around the key mission of the business. Run-to-fail doesn't take into account your mission. When equipment fails, it does so with no regard for what you might have planned for that day.
Lifecycle costs versus first costs
What is the true cost of owning a building over its entire life span? Too often, building owners fail to consider this key strategic question, instead focusing on individual pieces and parts and what they cost to repair.
Trane can help them with the assessment piece to determine what building owners are actually spending on their current systems.
A professional assessment of the facility can be enlightening for owners. These types of assessments help build an understanding of where money is being spent and what building systems truly cost, from actual costs of the equipment (first costs) to the energy costs associated with running it (operating costs) to the repair and failure costs (replacement costs) of equipment.
An understanding of how these factors relate to your building will help you make an educated decision about what approach to maintenance to take.
The pit falls with focusing on first costs
For most applications, it is shortsighted to just look at first costs.
Take the example of somebody considering the purchase of a vehicle. When deciding between two similar vehicles, priced at $10,000 and $15,000 respectively, a first-cost focus will lead the buyer to purchase the cheaper vehicle based upon price alone.
If, however, they factor in what the costs of owning and operating the vehicle will be over the next five or 10 years, the more expensive car may be the better option if it leads to reduced maintenance, more efficient energy efficiency and fuel economy, better features or other benefits of ownership.
If building owners switch their thinking to this type of approach to maintenance of key systems and equipment, they can avoid costly down time and turn their building into an asset that supports, rather than interrupts, their business mission.
For years, conservation groups , public utilities and government agencies have promoted energy conservation as a critical priority for the nation. But energy conservation doesn’t have to mean uncomfortable conditions for occupants. By taking a high performance buildings approach, organizations can engage in conservation efforts while promoting a comfortable, safe and productive environment for all building occupants.
When we think about creating high performance buildings, the organizations that typically come to mind are businesses or companies. But in reality, the unpredictable nature of energy costs means that all types of organizations – from businesses to non-profits, public sector agencies and units of government - all have a stake in the game when it comes to building performance.
Performance is a multi-pronged aspiration
Within the high performance buildings community, we have created pillars around efficiency of energy, reliability of system performance, environmental and operational impact, and occupant health and welfare. What sets the high performance buildings approach apart from the singularly focused, less ambitious approach of the past is the focus on discovering how we can improve all of these pillars in harmony and create the right environment across the board.
In other words, efforts that can achieve improvement in performance in all of these factors simultaneously is a home run. However, energy efficiency at the expense of productivity , health, safety or welfare is not a good thing, and will likely bring a premature end to efforts to improve energy efficiency unless the organization quickly finds a way to correct its approach.
Energy is a Global Commodity with Worldwide Impact for Organizations
When you look at the current global situation, the thing that organizations are universally faced with is a growing volatility in energy prices. Recently, oil prices jumped back above $110 per barrel, and could climb significantly higher by summer. History tells us that these price levels could easily translate to gasoline prices above $4.50 per gallon. This type of chain reaction changes the whole approach to how organizations address and manage the budgets for their buildings.
Some areas of budgets can reasonably be predicted. For instance, across much of the United States, building owners and operators have caught a break this year with expenses related to snow removal. However, last year was a heavy snowfall year, and so we see that year over year, it is possible for organizations to look at past costs and reasonably predict what costs will be next year. Over the longer term, those predictions are somewhat linear.
But no more is that the case with energy costs. The potential upward spikes of 50 percent or more make predicting energy costs a difficult and dangerous proposition. While consumers might reduce their driving habits when gas prices rise, building operators who haven't prepared can't simply flip a switch to begin saving energy if their costs rise dramatically.
Instead, organizations today must look at how energy prices impact the costs of not only running their building, but also the costs of operating vehicles, delivering goods or services, etc., and build an understanding of the total impact of escalating energy costs on their enterprise.
The days of just picking a number and plunking into the budget are gone. Organizations must analyze their operations and determine the most effective way to manage assets so that in the event of an energy cost spike they are minimally impacted and it doesn't crush the whole enterprise.
For different organizations that may mean looking at school busses that run on natural gas or using hybrid delivery vehicles, and for many it may mean modifying energy using systems in the building and improving building controls to improve efficiency.
When the price of energy is out of your control, efficiency in today's reality is all you can manage.
The high performance buildings approach to supporting organizational conservation efforts means you must think out as far in advance as you can and position yourself to be insulated as much as possible from negative impacts of cost spikes. Get your mind thinking about what you can do today to prepare yourself for the future, and manage the one thing firmly in your control – the efficiency of your operations.
Nestled just north of Atlanta and just south of the North Georgia Mountains, the City of Marietta, Ga., offers visitors the charm of a small city along with a stimulating urban environment. With a beautiful and vibrant downtown square filled with restaurants and antique shops, the city offers its 56,000 residents access to beautiful parks, quaint streets, Victorian homes and historic sites.
The city of Marietta, Ga., just completed infrastructure upgrades to its city hall and public safety buildings which are anticipated to reduce annual energy, operations and maintenance costs by nearly $90,000.
Trane, a leading global provider of indoor comfort systems and solutions and a brand of Ingersoll Rand, provided high-efficiency heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) solutions combined with energy saving advanced system controls for the upgrades. Trane was awarded the retrofit project for providing the best solution at the lowest cost during the competitive bid process.
Marietta leaders expect the infrastructure upgrades to save $71,000 in annual energy costs and reduce annual maintenance costs by $19,000. In addition, the upgrades will improve the comfort and productivity of city employees and visitors to the city buildings.
The $560,000 in HVAC infrastructure upgrades were funded through an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) provided by the U.S. Department of Energy under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).
Energy-Saving Upgrades Meet City Needs
Prior to the upgrades taking place, engineering company CDM Smith performed an energy audit of City Hall and the public safety complex buildings, which include the police department, courts and fire department headquarters station. The energy audit identified energy conservation measures that will best provide increased economic efficiency with maximum long-term benefits. CDM Smith also provided engineering services to the city throughout the entire project including design, bid and construction management.
The completed upgrades provide enhanced monitoring and control of HVAC systems throughout the facilities, while making facilities personnel jobs easier and less costly to perform. The installation work was completed with minimal disturbance to city operations, allowing staff to maintain full use of the facilities throughout the project.
The retrofits at City Hall included the installation of direct digital control (DDC) building controls to replace the original pneumatic building controls. The new DDC building controls utilize wireless thermostats with timed override buttons for limited HVAC during unscheduled hours.
The project included replacement of all air distribution variable air volume (VAV) boxes. A new building automation system can be accessed remotely online for trouble-shooting of building systems and operations.
The new building automation system includes complex control algorithms for the HVAC system to reduce energy use and maximize efficiency, including control of existing chilled water systems, air handling units, all new VAV boxes, and two new high-efficiency condensing boilers (the new boilers were installed under a separate contract). Additionally, new premium-efficiency HVAC motors replaced old motors, and variable frequency drives were added at pump and fan motors to work with the new control algorithms.
The upgrades at the public safety complex buildings included integration of the existing building automation system into the new Trane building automation system, along with advanced control algorithms to maximize energy efficiency. Existing thermostats were replaced with new digital thermostats equipped with timed override to reduce energy usage and maximize efficiency.
The Results Benefit the City, its Staff and its Residents
The upgrades implemented by Marietta make good sense beyond the fiscal and environmental benefits, as research has shown that steps such as those Marietta has taken to improve the working environment can actually increase employee productivity and reduce sick days.
The project reduces the city’s carbon footprint by approximately 490 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions (metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent) per year, the equivalent emissions savings from planting about 12,000 new trees or removing 96 cars from the road per year.
Perhaps more important to the city and its taxpaying residents, however, the successful implementation of the projects has allowed the city to realize a meaningful reduction to its budget.
Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital (CRMH) knew that it had no control over utility rates, but that it did have control over its energy use. The hospital sought to identify and implement energy conservation measures (ECMs) to reduce costs, in alignment with its mission to provide quality patient care as efficiently as possible.
The High Performance Buildings Journey
CRMH set out to identify low cost energy conservation measures (ECMs) that could be implemented to reduce its energy use and carbon footprint, lower costs for patients and provide a positive return on their investment. Due to increasing demands, hospital staff were unable to focus on the impact of their actions on energy use, the environment and the bottom line.
Based on a relationship that spanned over 20 years, Trane had extensive knowledge of CRMH operations, business goals and infrastructure needs. CRMH and the Trane High Performance Building team developed a partnership to address the energy and operational objectives of the hospital, utilizing an annual performance-based service agreement.
Identifying potential savings, Trane initiated a process to identify and quantify potential improvements. The ECM process is based on Six Sigma methodology, which takes critical factors such as saving potential, practicality, commercial viability and risk management into consideration.
Energy consumption was benchmarked, plans were developed and ECMs were identified. Trane and CRMH evaluated the ECMs and developed a top project list.
Results
Carilion implemented a high performance building solution to reduce its energy use and environmental footprint and lower costs for patients. Over 25 ECMs were implemented, including chilled water plant flow issue minimization, chiller plant automation, controls programming and flat plate heat exchanger modifications.
These and other measures delivered almost $275,000 in first-year energy savings and reduced carbon emissions by an estimated 2,214 tons.
"You can make a huge difference with energy conservation," said Johnny Morris, senior director of engineering, Carilion Clinic. "For every dollar saved, that’s money you can put back into your operation to give people a good place to go for their healthcare...why would you not do it?"
In previous posts we've reviewed the key steps in pursuing a high performance buildings journey, including identifying the building's mission, defining operational priorities, understanding tradeoffs and measuring against the mission.
In this post we'll discuss the final piece, which is calling on partners to help deliver the mission.
It make sense to seek help
In an era when information, methods and technology are emerging at a very rapid rate, it makes sense to seek assistance from willing partners who can help you understand the options available for navigating the journey to a high performance future state.
In larger urban areas, electric and gas utilities offer excellent programs that include guidance and knowledge to assist with conservation awareness and implementation models. Facility leaders can meet with utility representatives, whose resources certainly frame thinking about operational efficiency, specific technology application, new potential partners and other intelligence to assist in planning.
In addition to utility-grade energy audits to help uncover conservation opportunities, local utilities can be of great assistance in developing energy project work, helping with performance specifications and establishing project requirements.
Facilities and asset management professionals also can take advantage of system-level options developed by their primary original equipment manufacturers (“OEM“s) to review their installed systems and discuss upgrades, improvements and options.
OEMs can help provide business-case justification for decision making for repairs, recommissioning, upgrades, replacements and timing that prove valuable during budget cycles and long-term planning.
OEMs also provide input needed for a clear understanding of costs to operate systems and components. For example, they can talk readily about what it costs to operate primary equipment such as boilers and chillers each year, or they could perform scenario analysis like what a 10 percent hike in fuel prices might mean to overall annual operational costs.
Facility experts engage a number of organizations that provide education and help leaders understand options and emerging trends. Energy efficiency alliances and non-profit, action-oriented organizations support industry collaboratives and associations. These tend to range from regional, to industry-centric, or technology application specific.
Many of the organizations offer training and education workshops, webinars and local conferences that are affordable and convenient. Participation leads to awareness of other resources and other viable options for leaders to leverage.
External contributors can become key players that facilities leaders can leverage when navigating the process of establishing a high performance building. They can help leaders focus on ensuring that each building supports its organizational mission and improves the bottom line through a commitment to sustaining a high performance building environment.
Putting it all together
Every building has a mission, and understanding that mission is a critical to first step in developing an understanding of its occupants' objectives and how to set operational priorities that support that mission.
Once an operational model is defined and the necessary steps taken, building professionals must be aware of potential tradeoffs of implemented performance improvements, and take advantage of technology and best practices that allow them to measure against the mission, and ultimately gauge success.
In closing, if there is one key take-away from this piece, it would be that creating a high performance building is not a destination, but a journey. And like most journeys, knowledgeable guides can make all the difference.
This week I'll be building off the previous post about defining the building mission, and will talk about defining the operational priorities for the building, understanding the potential tradeoffs of efficiency measures, and measuring performance against the building mission.
Define operational priorities
Real estate experts act on a vision to achieve an optimal and harmonious balance of infrastructure system performance throughout the entire lifecycle of each building. It's something that Martin Townsend, director, Building Research Establishment (United Kingdom), refers to as the "dual currency of money and environmental metrics” needed to accomplish building life-cycle goals. Optimizing the occupant experience of tenants and other primary stakeholders has everything to do with considering sustained system efficiency, reliability and a healthy environment.
Based upon the specific mission of any building, defining operational priorities in the building is the first critical step in attaining the high performance balance that can characterize the facility’s operational life for many years. Defining operational metrics and priorities with a process to measure and validate ensures the facility is managed to sustainably support the overall building mission. Common practices are measuring and adhering to critical space temperature specifications, relative humidity levels, differential space pressures, maintaining short exposure and long exposure CO or CO2 levels, managing energy consumption and demand profiles and maintaining acoustics guidelines.
Explicitly defining operational requirements allow decision makers to more effectively prioritize, identify and measure tradeoffs that guide decision making as organizations face the challenges of controlling the bottom line while meeting objectives and advancing their mission.
Understand the tradeoffs
Over the years, experts have been developing an understanding of how best to achieve energy efficiency in buildings designed at a time when such considerations were clearly second-tier objectives. The pendulum has, at times, swung from excessive energy use to building “health” concerns.
Buildings that have been “improved” in the name of energy cost reductions – sometimes at the expense of a healthy environment, sufficient ventilation, lighting levels or air quality – would not be considered today among its peer class of High Performance Buildings. Occupants obviously value long-term, premium health and safety standards, well-lit, quiet work areas, and highly comfortable conditions – again, a harmonious existence of cost control and high-end performance.
Sometimes the efficiency measures that best achieve the identified operational priorities may include potential tradeoffs that should be fully assessed to avoid longer-term "side effects" – remediation of which may cost more money than is saved in energy dollars by efficiency measures.
For example, well-meaning efforts throughout the 1990s to decrease energy use in school districts carry some responsibility for current indoor air quality (IAQ), mold problems and other consequential issues, when these measures are developed without a clear understanding of operational consequences. A “tight” building that goes “dark” and is absent of air movement or light for long unoccupied periods may begin to show signs of mildew if relative humidity levels are not properly controlled.
This creates potential health problem for students and staff. The costly remediation for this circumstance easily exceeds the value of energy saved from the initial conservation attempts.
Measure and report against the mission
Industry experts take advantage of opportunities that avert downtime, save operating costs and prevent catastrophic failures while creating a productive occupant environment.
The use of technology aids this by allowing building operators to align energy use with building operations, occupancy and other critical factors that drive a buildings’ life-cycle cost structure. Building owners can tune into how, when and why building systems demand and consume energy.
Communicating with building sites and remotely collecting data makes a significant difference in mission driven and life cycle decision-making. Remote building monitoring collects information that is used to maintain the focus on delivering the building’s mission. The information that is collected should support the aforementioned operational priorities. The key metrics that keep the organization focused on balancing the proper tradeoffs should be routinely reviewed. Prompt notification of abnormalities in key metrics can save precious time and painful consequences.
An opportunity to provide remote inspections of key metrics to supplement physical site inspections (evenings, off-hours, holidays) delivers the possibility of uncovering accurate operational information at lower cost around the clock, throughout the calendar year. Such remote inspections validate system operation schedules. This gives us the ability to validate systems and components that should be on-or-offline and that critical operating standards are being maintained.
Technology can also be applied to deliver cost-effective, real-time testing that serves as a leading indicator of future performance (i.e., ‘real time to failure’ metrics), efficiency and reliability.
These types of technologies have become cost-effective means of better managing building systems, often translating into double-digit percentage decreases in annual operating cost avoidance without sacrificing reliability.
Up next: Calling on Partners to Deliver the Vision
In the previous posts in this series I've talked about how industry visionaries better align building life cycle performance with organizational objectives, and the five steps leaders should consider when developing a long-term approach to improving building performance. [link]
This week I will begin to further explore these factors in an effort to help you understand how to put the pieces together for your own organization. Let's begin with understanding what a building mission is and how it relates to the high performance buildings journey.
Identify each building’s mission:
From the perspective of the organizations that own, operate or occupy them, every building has a unique mission.
Real estate experts identify the mission of each of their buildings and work to create High Performance Buildings. They have crisp answers to questions such as: Why does this building exist? Who does it support? What are the occupant’s objectives?
The answers to these questions lay the groundwork for changing their facility strategies from cost and commodity focused to mission and life cycle focused.
Prepare to depart from convention when creating a High Performance Building. The time has come to abandon previously traditional, but predictably short-sighted practices such as the “run to fail” approach to maintenance or the once-typical laser focus on first cost at the expense of delivering on the building’s long-term mission.
Citing field research his organization conducted, Dave Hewitt, executive director of the New Building Institute, underscores the dangers of failing to be mission/life cycle focused when he says “the effects of operation and occupancy on energy use in buildings can negatively impact and, in some cases, overwhelm the efficiency designed and built into building systems." (White Salmon, Wash.)
A new way of thinking requires new standards and technologies
BREEAM (which served as the international standards basis for a generation of evaluation systems), Energy Star, LEED and emerging tools that support operational best practices drive users towards a life-cycle view for facilities.
These standards, along with other emerging data sources, such as that of the Federal Energy Management Program’s (FEMP) “Operations & Maintenance Best Practices Guide” (2010), pave the way to a healthier bottom line as well as a conscious departure from lagging practices like deferred maintenance.
In fact, FEMP suggests that “run-to-fail” practices result in facility operating costs that are as much as 66 percent greater than those deploying formal maintenance programs!
I'll leave you with a few parting words from Hewitt:
“There are two primary areas of concern: 1) is someone paying attention to operational efficiency? This is critical since research indicates that 20 percent of high performance buildings have significant operations-related problems that reduce intended efficiency; and 2) does the facilities manager or someone in a related role have access to the information and controls they need to really fine-tune the building from an operational perspective?”
Up next: Setting Operational Priorities, Understanding Tradeoffs and Measuring Against the Mission.
The 5 Key Steps to Adopting a High Performance Buildings Approach [Author: Louis J. Ronsivalli, Jr.]
In the previous post I talked a about developing a more effective decision-making model around system-centric life cycle economics and the need to look beyond “simple payback” energy economics to a more long-term approach. This post will take a look at the five key steps that leaders should consider when developing a long-term approach that reduces operating costs, improves asset value and supports the long-term mission of the organizations served by their facilities.
A simple but often overlooked truth is that, when it comes to capital improvements, short term decisions will often have long-term implications.
Addressing this, Jeff Meaney, senior vice president and head of Security-Corporate Services & BCP for TIAA-CREF (New York City) cites increasing financial urgency being driven by recent economic volatility, while maintaining necessary perspective.
“In the current environment you are trying to save every dime; capital investments need a strong payback," Meaney said. "But it is important to remember that real estate is a long-term investment.”
Five factors for success
To help organizations move beyond the short-term mindset, industry experts must clearly define organizational missions and critical objectives to drive how buildings are managed and operated, and deliver on their asset value. Underscoring this idea, Meaney said, "one item to increase asset value is lower, sustainable operating expenses.”
Leaders must also identify metrics to tie the success of their operations to the building mission, and must leverage technology to measure and report against these indicators.
These innovative practices provide a glimpse into high performance buildings and what may become conventional wisdom for the future. Detailed below is a prescriptive approach for assuring more successful life-cycle outcomes.
- Identify each building’s mission. Why does this building exist? Who does it support? What defines success for how the building delivers on its mission?
- Define operational priorities. Who are our primary partners in delivering on our priorities? What are the critical systems that serve the building? What are the key operational parameters that should be measured and sustained without exception?
- Understand tradeoffs. How can information be leveraged to prioritize maintenance activities and ensure spending is focused on the key drivers of performance and risk management?
- Measure against the vision. Consider low-cost technology to remotely access systems, collect data and monitor critical systems. High-end service providers can easily explain how to make this happen quickly and inexpensively and deliver an information-driven future.
- Call on partners to deliver the vision. Engage key resources to jointly help deliver on the building’s objectives. Examples are public utilities, major building system OEMs, associations and community partners.
Up next: Identifying Your Building's Mission and Beginning the High Performance Buildings Journey.
When it comes to improving building performance, it's easy to focus on short-term objectives and gains, and to gloss over the long-term effects of the path taken or not. A common short-sighted approach is to focus on individual component efficiency (chillers, air handlers, etc.) without understanding system implications of how these pieces integrate efficiently, or how investments in efficiency upgrades ultimately support the overall organizational mission.
The system deconstruction effect – sometimes referred to as “cherry picking” or “low hanging fruit” – has been the norm when it comes to using “simple economics” such as simple payback to guide decision-making within an organization. This can lead to situations in which partial or incomplete actions are viewed as solutions to performance improvement.
That's why, when it comes to getting our organizations to implement an efficiency and performance improvement program, going beyond the “simple” numbers to capture the longer term view of asset preservation and the economic vision of the c-suite executives and business decision makers is a critical element.
The role of the visionary
Within the building industry, visionaries are taking a life-cycle view to align a building’s mission, embracing the role of facility operations and improved profitability while reducing life cycle costs – all with a harmonious, intra-system approach to operational efficiencies.
These are concepts that get business leaders excited. Improving efficiency and long-term profitability while sustainably reducing costs? That's the best of both worlds for leaders who have taken the time to understand the value of long term asset planning over first-cost, simple economics.
In the new era of energy cost volatility, there has never been a better time to explore a high performance buildings approach.
In the current economy, building owners and operators are simultaneously feeling continuous economic pressures while experiencing heightened social and environmental awareness of their buildings’ impact on the community, occupants and organizations they serve.
"We need to ensure that we have metrics which span all stages of a building’s life, creating great and productive spaces in which we work,” says Martin Townsend, director, Building Research Establishment (United Kingdom). “Ensuring, as we do, that the impact of every building in its construction and use is as efficient as it can be, by turning the data of performance into knowledge for facilities managers to do their jobs – and for occupants – so they can see the impact of their decisions.”
But as technologies and our understanding of building life-cycle dynamics evolve, it is clear that the desired outcomes need to expand well beyond “simple payback” energy economics of years past.
At first glance, one could conclude that these seemingly opposing factors put upward pressure on cost structures. However, visionaries managing these situations continue to develop and test innovative practices to serve building stakeholders more efficiently, reliably and responsibly while achieving goals to decrease overall costs.
Up Next: Part 2 - The 5 key Steps to Adopting a High Performance Buildings Approach
For building owners and managers looking to save money through energy efficiency, an important first step is to determine the current level of performance of key building systems, such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), lighting, water, electrical, etc.
To really gauge a building's energy performance, it's important to gather three to five years of actual utility cost data. The cost data can be compared against industry averages and best-in-class performance to see how your building stacks up against similar peer groups.
You've got your data – what now?
Once you've gone through a data analysis process and determined the need to make improvements, how do you know where to invest your money to get the best bang for the buck?
With all of the Energy Conservation Measure (ECM) technologies and applications available, it can be challenging to know how best to prioritize investments in efficiency. It's important to use an assessment methodology to determine potential investments and rank them according to their relative value to your organization in terms of return on investment.
At Trane, we use a Six Sigma analysis tool to evaluate each ECM’s potential for investment in energy and water efficiency based on five key customer and Trane "ranking criteria."
These criteria include:
- Savings potential
- Practicality
- Commercial viability
- Risk management
- Business differentiation
Using these criteria, we've given a relative potential ranking to each measure to come up with a list of what we consider to be the top 25 energy conservation measures. These conservation measures have the highest ranking potential, but, don’t necessarily mean they will apply to all customer situations and/or will actually generate any savings.
The Top 25 Energy Conservation Measures
- Upgrade to Direct Digital Control (Building Automation System/Energy Management System)
- Implement Compressed Air Utility Management (Industrial applications)
- Install Low Flow/Use Fixtures (Water Conservation)
- Retro/Re-commission Controls for Optimizing Savings
- Install Lab Hoods Control – (Reduce exhaust air amounts when not needed)
- Change Regulated Utility Rate/Tariff
- Install Smart Meters & software – (Charging tenants correctly and catching billing errors)
- Install Lighting Controls
- Replace T-8s for HiBays with T5s
- Install Tankless/Instantaneous Water Heaters
- Change to Interruptible Rates and Use Electric Generators (Utility rate savings)
- Install Weather-Stripping
- Upgrade Fluorescent Fixtures w/ T8 or T5 Lamps and Electronic Ballasts
- Retrofit Incandescent Lamps w/ Compact Fluorescent Lamps
- Replace Exit Sign w/new LED Fixture
- Adjust Burner as Regular Maintenance
- Convert Constant Volume Air Handling Systems to Variable Air Volume (HVAC upgrade)
- Convert Dual Duct to VAV
- Replace HID HiBay fixtures with T5s or T8s
- Add LED night lights in halls
- New Construction with Green Roofs (Plants)
- Install Water Source Heat Pump System
- Install VFD/VSDs for Pumps
- Reduce Outdoor Air To Design Level
- CO2-Based Demand-Controlled Ventilation
Example: American Medical Systems®
American Medical Systems® (AMS), a leading provider of world-class devices and therapies for male and female pelvic health, is a company known for its innovation. To combat rising energy-related costs, AMS recently sought out an equally innovative solution to provide energy savings without sacrificing the critical system reliability needed to maintin strict, around-the-clock temperature control in the company’s manufacturing facility.
AMS selected a comprehensive solution that replaced aging infrastructure systems with high-efficiency solutions and undertook a 10-year service agreement to budget service costs on an annualized basis.
The infrastructure improvement project was initiated in January 2011, and installation was completed in just three weeks in March. Because of strict tolerances in the AMS manufacturing facility, the system shutdown was very carefully orchestrated to ensure that there were no productivity losses.
The upgraded systems are expected to increase operational and energy efficiency while reducing annual energy costs by 20 percent. The upgrades will also generate approximately $50,000 in rebates from Xcel Energy.
Custom solutions deliver exceptional results
Prior to selecting the infrastructure upgrades, AMS leaders conducted a preliminary analysis of their chilled water system plant. Based on the results, they selected solutions that best fit their needs, including a high efficiency chilled water system to serve the 21,000-square-foot manufacturing facility.
AMS facilities managers can customize the chilled water system, depending on the needs of the building at a particular time. Energy-saving options include: adaptive frequency drives to optimize compressor performance, heat recovery to reduce operating costs and a free cooling feature which can provide up to 45 percent of nominal chiller capacity without running the compressor. A building automation system was added for centralized control of the chilled water system plant. It can be expanded if needed to control infrastructure systems throughout the building.
Benefits of Upgrades Extend Beyond Energy Efficiency
Sustainable solutions such as those AMS has chosen can increase worker productivity—and may even reduce sick time—according to a recent study by the University of San Diego and CB Richard Ellis. The research examined the productivity of more than 500 tenant companies who have moved into Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified or Energy Star-labeled buildings. The study found that, compared to non-green buildings, healthier buildings reduce sick time and increase employee productivity.
From the primary benefits of reduced building operation and manufacturing costs to the secondary benefits of improved employee productivity and morale, the benefits of taking the high performance buildings journey will impact a manufacturing business throughout the lifecycle of the building.
Visit our website to learn more about the Trane High Performance Buildings approach to manufacturing.
One of the best opportunities for manufacturers to save money and improve operational efficiency is through investments in energy efficiency upgrades that reduce production costs and improve the bottom line.
Manufacturers Have Specialized Energy Needs
There are many different types of manufacturers, each with their own specialized energy needs.
One thing most manufacturers have in common is that they use significant amounts of energy to meet the unique climate control and lighting requirements of their facilities, which often include very large indoor production spaces. In addition, the equipment used in the manufacturing process typically consumes a significant amount of energy and can have a huge impact on the indoor environment in production spaces.
For some manufacturers, strict temperature control must be maintained during the manufacturing process to ensure the correct specifications of the final product. For these environments, a robust climate control system is required to prevent product loss and maintain quality control requirements during the manufacturing process.
In environments where the manufacturing process is labor-intensive, maintaining critical space conditions is a must for workers to be productive, comfortable and safe.
Many manufacturers require an HVAC system capable of maintaining a consistent production environment while overcoming significant challenges such as rapid temperature fluctuations and high levels of humidity and smoke that can occur in a factory environment.
Improving Worker Comfort while Reducing Energy and Production Costs
From planning and initial design to retrofitting existing factories, Trane experts help manufacturers developing facilities that will give them exceptional control over energy-related costs and maintain the highest standards of performance and reliability.
As a part of our high performance buildings approach, we work with new and existing facilities to make sure they are safe, comfortable and efficient while contributing to the owners’ business mission.
The Trane High Performance Buildings process combines financial, operating and energy analysis to address a facility’s critical performance elements and apply economic values in order to quantify improvements and assure results.
The bottom line result is a facility with high performance lighting and HVAC systems and superior worker comfort with reduced energy costs and increased efficiency.
Example: Gillette Manufacturing Plant in Lódz
A great example of the Trane High Performance Buildings approach to manufacturing facilities is the Gillette plant in Lódz, Poland - the world’s largest Gillette razor manufacturing, packaging and warehousing facility and a division of Procter & Gamble Co. (P&G), a leading global consumer goods manufacturer.
In August 2010 the plant completed energy saving infrastructure upgrades that increase uptime and reliability and provide a safer, more comfortable and more productive environment for workers, while saving hundreds of thousands of PLN in energy costs.
Leaders selected a comprehensive, high efficiency solution that replaced the facility’s chilled water plant management system and controls. They expect to recoup their investment in infrastructure upgrades a little more than two years after completion.
Prior to selecting the infrastructure upgrades, Trane and Gillette used Trace™ 700 energy modeling software to weigh the merits of potential solutions with a lifecycle analysis model. Based on the results, Gillette chose solutions that would best fit their needs and would provide the critical stable temperature levels required to optimize production levels and comfort within the facility.
The $3.6-million project, which was completed in September, was implemented during a period of significant budget cuts to address aging infrastructure, reduce energy consumption and support the long-term goal of sustainability. The improvements reflect the college’s strong commitment to sustainability, which is also evident in its curriculum offerings, including a new Center for Sustainability that focuses on student and professional sustainability education.
“We believe investing in a high-performance learning environment plays a critical role in fulfilling our educational mission at Central Piedmont Community College,” said Tony Zeiss, president of CPCC. “These upgrades make us more fiscally efficient and further the leading role we play in preparing Charlotte and Mecklenburg County for a sustainable future.”
The upgrades represent a milestone in transforming the college’s facilities into high-performance buildings that tie to the school’s educational mission.
High-performance buildings take a whole-building approach to performance while creating spaces that are reliable, safe, healthy, comfortable and efficient. They meet specific standards for energy and water consumption, system reliability and uptime, environmental compliance, occupant comfort, and other factors. All standards are set to deliver established outcomes that help building owners and occupants achieve their business mission.
Customized Solutions Identified
In the spring of 2009, CPCC committed to being one of the first North Carolina community colleges to respond to the state mandate to achieve energy savings of 20 percent as compared to their 2006 baseline. Next, the CPCC finance and facilities groups collaborated on an energy audit to identify energy conservation measures that could increase energy efficiency.
The team then used the results to develop a comprehensive plan to improve energy efficiency in the Central Campus utility plant and five other campus buildings totaling 364,315 square feet. These buildings include: the Advanced Technology Building, the Central High School building (this building functioned as a high school until 1959), the Giles Building, the Learning Resource Center and the Terrell Building.
Improvements included energy efficient lighting and water upgrades. The heating, ventilation and air conditioning system upgrades included the expansion of the campus building automation system, the installation of direct digital controls, as well as the addition of variable frequency drives for more energy and operational efficiency.
Tertiary hot water and chilled water pumping systems, which pump only to necessary levels when needed, were added to the central utility plant to make the Central Campus buildings more efficient. The team also outlined a delayed capital master plan to extend chilled water and hot water lines across the campus to connect the new systems to the older original campus buildings.
CPCC captured significant cost savings by leveraging construction activities on the improvements. Initially, trenching was designed to handle two, small chilled water lines. Through project coordination, the work was expanded to a full utility trench and now includes two, large chilled water lines, two hot water lines, as well as the fiber-optic cable network. The anticipated savings on future construction costs are expected to be nearly $1.2 million. Additionally, lighting improvements completed as part of the project are generating rebates from the local utility.
The improvements are funded with a performance contract which allows CPCC to use future energy and operational savings to finance infrastructure improvement. A performance contract is an option for funding energy-saving improvements in buildings that provides measurable business results. Facilities can leverage energy and operational savings to support their strategic educational objectives. The end result is CPCC can achieve higher energy efficiency without the need for capital funding.
Rockefeller Center is one of the most recognized commercial properties in the world, and is home to 12 buildings and approximately 6.5 million rentable square feet in Midtown Manhattan. Bound by Fifth and Sixth Avenues and running from 48th Street to 51st Street, Rockefeller Center is home to Tishman Speyer, NBC, the Radio City Music Hall, and the renowned Rockefeller skating rink and Christmas tree.
Since becoming owner and operator in 1996, Tishman Speyer has been on a mission to restore the iconic New York treasure to its former glory and make sustainable improvements to preserve the asset and increase tenant comfort.
On its high performance buildings journey, the Tishman Speyer team undertook innovative energy efficiency and cost reduction projects to improve functionality and cost effectiveness. As part of this process, the Tishman Speyer team asked the energy services group at Trane to conduct a financial analysis of the complex and identify opportunities for improvement.
Through assessment of Rockefeller’s power consumption and utilities billing, Trane designed a solution to improve the financial operation of Rockefeller Center by taking advantage of previously unrealized energy and cost saving opportunities as well as addressing existing design flaws.
The new system was built to optimize the efficiency of the existing plant to generate both the financial and environmental results desired by Tishman Speyer.
The 41-tank system provides 8,600 ton hours of thermal storage, which allows the building to shift peak cooling loads to off-peak hours by producing ice at night for daytime cooling.
Because of the New York climate, the system is able to conserve energy by reducing the load on the primary heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) plant during winter and shoulder seasons when cooling demands are low. In addition, Rockefeller Center has special tenant chilled water requirements that are now serviced by the ice-chiller plant alone.
Results
The installation of a thermal storage system has significantly improved the energy efficiency of the Center’s 12 buildings and lowered overall energy costs.
The upgraded HVAC system at Rockefeller Center is saving approximately $2 million in annual energy and operation costs. Trane estimates that energy conservation provided by the upgrade reduces Rockefeller Center’s carbon emissions by 3.3 million pounds per year, which is equivalent to taking 300 cars off the road each year or planting 450 acres of trees.
Tishman Speyer also received $311,000 from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to help support the installation of energy-efficient technology.
Through training and quality operation, the system has far exceeded initial savings projections, according to Tishman Speyer.
The 1.8 million square foot AXA Equitable building at 787 Seventh Avenue is located between 51st
and 52nd Streets in Midtown Manhattan. Featuring a stone façade constructed from red granite and Indiana limestone, the 54-floor building is home to multiple restaurants and banks, an athletic club, a 499-seat auditorium and a host of legal firms and financial services companies.
To accomplish its mission of reducing operating costs while maintaining tenant comfort and safety,
AXA’s building management team partnered with the Trane energy services team to design and
build a high performance system that would replace the building’s original, outdated heating,
ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) plant.
The Trane High Performance Buildings approach recognizes that it costs significantly more money to operate and maintain a building throughout its decades-long occupied life than it does to design and build it in the first place. On the building’s ’s high performance journey, they worked with Trane to conduct a financial and energy analysis of the building using Trane TRACE™ 700 software, which is a complete building load, HVAC system, energy and economic analysis computer simulation program that compares the energy and economic impact of different building design alternatives.
Based on the results, Trane recommended the replacement of the original 4,000-ton central plant
system with two 1,400-ton high efficiency electric Trane chillers, a 1,540-ton dual duty electric
chiller and a 45-tank thermal storage system, which provides 9,000 ton-hours of thermal storage
capacity. Combined, these solutions bring the plant’s total mechanical capacity to 4,340 tons, an
increase of 340 tons, in addition to the cooling impact of the new thermal storage equipment.
Trane also worked with AXA’s building management team to design the replacement of several
chilled water and condenser pumps, coupled with the installation of Variable Flow Drives (VFDs)
and state-of-the-art building automation systems. These systems allow the building to customize
plant operations, optimize energy conservation and further reduce energy costs.
Results
Trane helped the AXA team discover opportunities to manage costs, reduce resource consumption
and improve operational performance through its high performance buildings journey.
By producing ice during the night for use in daytime cooling, the system reduces overall energy
costs by avoiding peak-demand utility fees. Additionally, the high-performance upgrades improve
the reliability of the building’s air conditioning because ice can continue to provide cooling during
several different plant failure scenarios.
The new plant increases overall capacity by 340 tons while maintaining the same electrical and
machinery footprint. The energy conservation provided is estimated to help reduce the building’s
carbon emissions by 2.4 million pounds per year, which is the equivalent of removing 220 cars from the road annually or planting 325 acres of trees.
The project will result in significant savings in annual energy costs for AXA Equitable. The installation is being supported in utility incentives from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).
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