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Showing posts with label energy savings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label energy savings. Show all posts

2/23/21

Arezza - Volt Logistics

 Innovative Energy Savings Solutions for Small Towns and Businesses


Volt Logistics
specializes in properties typically found on main street and historic districts, with a focus on energy savings and building automation systems.

Property Types range from hotel, vacation and other short-term accommodations, retail, and office buildings as well as museums and entertainment venues located in historic districts and main streets of towns and suburban areas.

Innovative Solutions for Business and Commercial Districts in Historic Towns and Neighborhoods


Small and Medium-sized Commercial Buildings account for 95 percent of building stock and consume half the energy in a sector of the economy responsible for 20 percent of the total energy consumption. Owners of smaller buildings are often unaware of the amount of energy wasted and the opportunity for savings that building automation systems provide.

Building Leases define how energy costs are divided between tenants and owners. Often, these leases are not structured in a way that promotes energy savings. Tenants have no incentive to save energy in their leased premises because energy costs are based on tenant square footage. Building owners have no incentive to invest in energy efficiency because the operating expenses are passed onto tenants.

Green Leases promote energy efficiency by creating lease structures which equitably align the costs and benefits of efficiency investments between building owners and tenants.


Energy Management Systems
are utilized to centrally control devices like HVAC units and lighting systems across multiple locations. EMS also provide metering, sub-metering and monitoring functions that allow facility managers to gather data and insight to make more informed decisions about energy activities across their sites.


Distributed Generation
occurs on a property site when energy is sold to the building occupants; here, commercial PPAs enable businesses and governments to purchase electricity directly from the generator rather than from the utility. Power Purchase Agreements PPA are a legal contract between an electricity generator and a power purchaser.

Revenue Sharing of the Energy Savings among Properties, Tenants, Equipment and Components Suppliers and Contractors


10/22/19

Energy Efficiency in Self-Reliant Communities



Energy Management Open Source Software for Small and Medium-sized Commercial Buildings


Commercial Buildings account for 20% of total energy consumption in the United States. The larger units use management systems or automation systems BAS to improve comfort and reduce energy costs; however, small and medium sized commercial building, which account for half the sector’s energy usage and 95% building stock, lack cost-effective BAS solutions and the resultant savings.



Property Owners are often Unaware of Energy Waste and BAS Savings Opportunities
Load Types there are three major loads in commercial buildings: HVAC, lighting and plug loads. According to the data from EIA published in 2008, electricity use by HVAC equipment accounts for 30% of the total electricity consumption, lighting loads use 38% and plug loads 6%.
Cost and Interoperability BAS systems need to become much more inter-operable, scaleable, and easy to deploy by utilizing open architectures, plug-and-play and providing local or remote monitoring. Most systems currently use proprietary architectures requiring building owners and controls designers to purchase devices and controllers from a single vendor instead of optimal products, controls, and services from different vendors.

A turn-key solution that reduces installation and maintenance costs. In addition, it is a scaleable and broadly inter-operable solution with seamless HVAC, lighting, plug load equipment and controller integration from different manufacturers, hence plug-and-play functionality for the many system configurations found in smaller commercial architectures.
 Tests Demonstrate Energy Savings of 10% for HVAC and 15% for Lighting loads
Benefits the system provides small-sized commercial building owners access to flexible, cost-effective building energy management that streamlines operations and optimizes energy usage. Also, the greater interconnection between building systems and a centralized control structure facilitates demand response, providing additional savings and better integration with the electric power grid. 




Connect for Energy Efficiency Solutions

2/04/18

Small Data Centers

Data Centers consume about over 70 billion kWh of electricity yearly, 2% percent of the total, with increasing numbers of users as more information is shared and stored online. Energy efficiency potential exists with small data centers, defined as under 5,000 square feet of computer floor space; these centers house over 50 percent of all servers and consume about 40 billion kWh per year.
small data centers lack the resources to implement energy-saving opportunities

Energy Efficiency measures achieve savings of 20 to 40 percent without impacting IT equipment reliability, when properly implemented.
Unused Servers an estimated 20-30 percent of servers in data centers are consuming power, cooling, and space while not working; idle servers consume half the power as at full load. To better manage server usage and utilization, create and update a server hardware and application inventory that tracks the number of applications running on each server.
mapping applications to the physical servers helps identify unused servers
Power Management saves energy by turning off power or switching equipment to low-power modes when not in use. Energy Star servers are shipped with three categories of power management enabled. Utilize built-in or add-in cards that enable servers to be powered on or off remotely. Improve air management; the key task is to ensure that cool air from the data center’s cooling equipment gets to the air inlet of the IT gear, without getting mixed with the hot air exhausted from the back; also ensure that hot air going back to the cooling equipment does not mix with the cold air. This is achieved by clearing clutter from the desired airflow path, blocking off bypass and recirculation airflow paths within and between the racks and the raised floor.
Energy Savings can be realized through two measures: raising temperature setpoints and reducing air-flow rates. There is a broad range of air-management strategies that span the range of complexity and cost; containment of cold or hot aisles is a very effective approach as is increasing temperature setpoints to deliver air towards the high end of the ASHRAE recommended range; temperature guidelines allow much broader operating ranges than those commonly used, allowing the air temperature at the IT equipment inlet to be raised-up to 80°F or higher- which considerably reduces cooling energy usage compared to the inlet temperatures of 65-70°F commonly used.
Computer-Room Air Conditioners (CRACs) and Computer-Room Air Handlers (CRAHs) control their temperatures based on return air; these CRAC/H setpoints will be much higher than the IT inlet temperature. In chilled-water systems, if raising the air temperature also enables raising the chilled water temperature, a 1°F rise in the chilled water temperature typically results in a 2 percent reduction in chiller energy.
Active Humidity Control energy savings can result from reducing humidification and the over-cooling and reheat typically involved in active dehumidification. ASHRAE humidity guidelines, expanded on the low end to about 8 percent relative humidity, allow much broader operating ranges than those commonly used. As a result, large energy and water savings are possible by eliminating this control.
Uninterruptible Power Supply UPS requirements. Risk-averse IT managers often overdesign redundancy into their systems, when in fact many IT applications can be shut down if there is a power disturbance and restarted without adverse effects. Verifying power backup requirements can help eliminate capital costs for unnecessary or oversized redundant power supplies or UPS equipment.
high reliability items should move to larger data centers or cloud solutions
Establish server refresh policies that account for increases in generation-on-generation computational ability, energy -efficiency, and power management improvements. When purchasing new equipment, servers with solid-state drives SSD, rather than hard disk drives, could be considered, as they feature faster speeds, are generally more reliable, and consume less power. New equipment typically has much more computing power than older equipment, which facilitates consolidation and virtualization. Consolidate and Virtualize Applications typical servers in server rooms and closets run at very low utilization levels - 5-15%, while drawing roughly 75 percent of their peak power on average. Consolidating multiple applications on a smaller number of servers accomplishes the same amount of computational work, and the same level of performance, with much lower energy consumption. Virtualization consolidates applications, allowing multiple applications to run in their own environments on shared servers. Increasing server utilization reduces both the number of servers required to run a given number of applications and overall server energy use.
Distributed Server Rooms are typically not very energy efficient. If a central data center is available, you may be able to save energy and reduce your utility bill by moving your servers, or their applications, to that location. Many organizations are moving their equipment to co-location or their applications to cloud facilities
co-location and the cloud provide better efficiencies than on-premise server rooms
Power Monitoring identifies the energy use and efficiencies of the various components in the electrical distribution and cooling systems. While power monitoring by itself will not save energy, it can help identify energy saving opportunities. Power meters can be installed at the panels serving the cooling units, or directly on IT and HVAC equipment. Often power distribution products will have built-in monitoring capability.
Air-side Economizers draw in outside air for cooling when conditions are suitable.  Server rooms with exterior walls or roof are a pre-requisite for air-side economizers. This could be in the form of an exhaust fan removing heat in one portion of the room and an opening in another location allowing cool, outside air to enter; alternatively, it could be in the form of a fan coil or CRAC/H with air-side economizer capability. Depending on the climate zone in which the server closet is located, this strategy can save a significant amount of energy by reducing compressor use needed for cooling.
Training is important to keep up with the rapid evolution of technologies and solutions in the data center sector; skills are required to perform accurate data center energy assessments. The Data Center Energy Practitioner DCEP training program certifies energy practitioners qualified to evaluate the energy status and efficiency opportunities in data centers. The program reinforces best practices and introduces new tools and techniques in IT equipment, air management, cooling systems, and electrical systems. 

                                                     Saving Energy in Your Data Center

volt@arezza.net    Volt Logistics

11/08/17

Green Leases for Properties and Communities



Green leases also known as aligned, high performance, or energy efficient leases align the financial and energy incentives of building owners and tenants so they can work together to save money, conserve resources, and ensure the efficient operation of buildings. A green lease is a lease of space in a green building that is designed, constructed and operated to achieve sustainability, water efficiency, energy savings and indoor environment quality.
Building Leases spell out how energy costs are divided between tenants and owners. Often, these leases are not structured in a way that promotes energy savings. Tenants have no incentive to save energy in their leased premises because energy costs are based on tenant square footage. Building owners have no incentive to invest in energy efficiency because the operating expenses are passed onto tenants.
Green Leases promote energy efficiency by creating lease structures which equitably align the costs and benefits of efficiency investments between building owners and tenants.
​​ A Landlord Tenant Energy Partnership
The Landlord Tenant Energy Partnership is led by the Institute for Market Transformation with the Retails Industry Leaders Association and the International Council of Shopping Centers. Participants have access to guidance in implementing energy efficiency steps, lease negotiations and property operations.


An Energy Savings Checklist replace inefficient incandescent bulbs with CFL bulbs; install and correctly set a programmable thermostat; switch out your showerhead for an efficient WaterSense model; use a power strip for electronics and appliances; set the refrigerator to 36°F - 40°F and the freezer to 0°F - 5°F. use shades and insulated drapes to block out the sun in the summer and reduce heat loss in winter.
Energy Management nearly all renters pay their own energy bills but have little say over the efficiency and quality of the appliances and windows in their home. 

Connect with Tema
for Green Leases in Your Community

   Knowledge Tourism





tema@arezza.net | skype arezza1 https://arezza.org