Enlightened Energy Consultants
Download Case StudyCHALLENGE:
Enlightened Energy is a consultant group based in the greater New York area focused on helping businesses diagnose and intelligently solve energy efficiency issues in their commercial building. The group aims to fast track their customers on the road to complex ends, including lower utility bills, a smaller carbon footprint, and earning esteemed building certifications such as LEED or WELL.
When environmental services company, Merritt Environmental, bought a new office space in the Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge, its principal Chuck Merritt tasked Enlightened Energy with helping him find the right fit for efficient building controls.
This was no ordinary ask. As an environmental services company, Merritt wanted his new office space to showcase the best in modern, sustainable technology and qualify for a LEED Gold rating — all without going over budget. Additionally, it was important to the customer that any technology Merritt Environmental recommended is user friendly, not reliant on proprietary software that would require specialized maintenance and allowed remote access to building data from a laptop or mobile device.
SOLUTION:
The Long Island Innovation Park at Hauppauge is the largest innovation park in the northeast area of the country. It celebrates the best in innovation and is home to big-thinking companies in aerospace, biopharma, distribution, and more. As a member of this community, Merritt planned to make his new office a showcase in sustainability. To achieve this, Merritt implemented carpeting made from recycled fishing nets, a koi pond with plants that can remove VOCs from the air, and other impressive projects.
HVAC was a more complicated endeavor. Several contractors told Merritt his equipment needed to be replaced entirely — coupled with a building controls solution, this would quickly drive up total project costs or take away capital allocated for other projects. Enlightened Energy carried out their own analysis of Merritt’s office and determined replacing HVAC equipment entirely was unnecessary — the right building controls solution could easily straighten out HVAC operation.
Enlightened Energy scoured the marketplace for the right fit and landed on 75F for its low installation costs, cloud-based analytics and control capabilities, and highly user-friendly interface. With help from County Energy Controls, the team installed 75F® Dynamic Airflow Balancing™ to take control of the office’s three rooftop units and eight zones.
We saved at least $150,000 in capital costs for this project by keeping most of the customer’s existing HVAC equipment and installing 75F’s Dynamic Airflow Balancing solution. We’re projecting a 35% reduction in AC operating costs compared to other options in the market.
RESULTS:
All Merritt Environmental's careful considerations paid off — the environmental services company earned their LEED Gold certification without going over budget. Of the points awarded for the certification, 75F contributed 32 points for enhanced commissioning, optimized energy performance, advanced energy metering, and indoor air quality considerations.
Thanks to 75F’s wireless device communication capabilities, pre-programmed control sequences, and cloud-based operation, Merritt Environmental saved significant costs normally associated with installing a building automation system. This benefit plus keeping existing HVAC equipment allowed Enlightened Energy to save their customer an estimated $150K in construction and installation costs.
Additionally, Merritt Environmental is saving a projected 30 percent more in HVAC energy costs than the competitor solutions Enlightened Energy considered implementing. With Diamond Comfort Systems as Merritt Environmental’s servicing HVAC contractor, the customer’s mechanical systems will continue to operate at peak efficiency.
"I didn’t really want to consider any control system with proprietary programming — I didn’t want to have to deal with a complicated tool and its maintenance costs," said Chuck Merritt, president of Merritt Environmental. "That was one reason for choosing 75F, and Enlightened Energy did a great job finding a solution that would keep costs within budget and be easy to use."
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