Innovation brings new challenges, and it takes experienced, creative minds to come up with new solutions.
Experience and creativity are exactly what ECT Services Account Manager Mike Fisher brought to the table when Hitachi needed a solution to monitor energy for tenants in a building complex. Mike put his engineering background to work and within two weeks created VR Tenant, a solution for monitoring energy usage on a unit by unit basis.
Hitachi’s problem was this: older air conditioning systems move chilled air through a building via a series of large ducts. Newer, more space efficient systems move refrigerant through a building through a series of smaller pipes. While the newer systems are more efficient, it didn’t offer a way to monitor energy use and bill back tenants for their usage. It’s also difficult to track possible refrigerant leakage, which could pose a hazard to tenants.
Mike’s solution includes both hardware and software that ties into the variable refrigerant system to gather data and calculate data. A “head end” gathers all data and performs the detailed calculations, and energy measurement devices in each unit of the building measures and monitors usage. Units are determined by the building owner/manager, and the configuration is flexible.
Installation is flexible and fairly simple. Mechanical engineers can install the hardware, and ECT services handles set up and configuration of the software.
The VR Tenant system can be installed as new variable refrigerant systems are installed, or retrofitted into existing installations. VR Tenant is compatible with a wide range of variable refrigerant systems, too.
The development and deployment of the VR Tenant system demonstrates our deep understanding of building systems and integration, our excellence as a collaborative partner, and our ability to innovate.
Do you have a building system integration challenge to solve? We can help. Call (800) 567-1180 today for a consultation.