US Complex Saves 38%

US Complex Achieves 38% Savings

Florida based partner, Ekon Energy, has been working with local firm of accountants, Johnson Eubank and Co. since early 2011. In that time, the team has been able to save around 40% of the energy consumed within their newly built office complex.

Sharpening the pencil…

As an accountant, Johnson Eubank and Co’s managing director, Robert Johnson, has a head for numbers. He is used to sharpening the pencil for his clients, casting his eyes down rows of figures looking for the efficiencies that help his clients turn a healthier profit without additional work.

However, when it came to his newly completed office complex in Daytona, the figures became somewhat of a mystery. Despite state of the art climate control and automation systems the bills he received each month consistently exceeded expectations.

With only retrospective, aggregated totals, of energy consumption across the whole property to go on, Robert was left with little or no data to carry out a meaningful evaluation of his energy usage.

A systematic approach

Robert invited Ekon Energy in to see how they might help him bring their energy consumption under control and the process they would follow to identify potential energy leaks at his facility.

He explained that the building was a newly completed, purpose built complex, housing a number of tenants across five-storey’s of office space. At the core of this development was an intelligent heating, ventilation and air conditioning system (HVAC) controlling the temperature and humidity of the complex on a room-by-room basis.

What Johnson Eubank and Co needed was a company that would take the same systematic approach to their efficiency, that they took each day on behalf of their clients.

Our distributor took Mr. Johnson through the three-stage EnergyMaps process; control, reduce, eliminate. He explained that in order to bring consumption under control it would be necessary to have an accurate way of measuring consumption on a minute-by-minute and real-time basis. Past data available from utility bills and individual zone meters, although relevant, would be of little use in identifying potential leaks as they were too far from the event.

An Eniscope metering system was installed at the offices to measure energy consumption patterns over time. This data, along with details of local temperatures, office operating times and usage patterns could be combined and analyzed at a later stage to identify where reductions could be made.

State of the art energy consumer

What soon became clear from the data was that energy consumption was out of sync with usage patterns at the building and the local operating environment. The problem appeared to revolve around the state of the art climate control system.

As it turned out, the system had not been properly programmed by the installing contractor and had been left unchecked since. Worse still, the installer and local engineers had little knowledge of how the system worked and were unable to identify opportunities to optimize its performance.

Through the Eniscope real-time and historical data recorded the HVAC system was brought under control.

A winning result

With a baseline month recorded, it was easy for Ekon to run a comparison to identify what value of energy had been going to waste each month as a result of the poorly programmed HVAC. With outside temperatures and building occupancy details to hand they could adjust their readings accordingly to ensure that any month by month fluctuations were accounted for.

The report showed that between $300 and $500 of monthly energy costs had been going to waste, a staggering 35-40% of the total energy cost for the office complex. The company could now realize those savings and continue to track performance on a month-by-month basis to ensure efficiency was maintained at the complex from this point forward.

One year on, and Johnson Eubank and Co has now saved over $8,000, realizing a return on investment period of just 13 months. The data has become invaluable to Mr. Johnson’s firm in ensuring their facility is appropriately managed and their energy efficiency ensured.

If you would like to learn more about how we can help you reduce your energy costs please get in touch with our team here.