Case Study
How VITALITY saved Salt Lake Community College $50k/year on energy costs.
Company
Summary
VITALITY was able to identify energy cost savings of over $50,000/year for the Salt Lake Community College.
Published
December 17, 2020
Overview
After the implementation of a full-scale energy management system at the college, VITALITY continued to monitor the energy consumption of the college through the VITALITY platform. It quickly became apparent to Vitality, as well as to the college energy manager, that they had pre-existing peak demand issues.
A Bit of Context
Salt Lake Community College is Utah’s largest college with the most diverse student body. It serves more than 60,000 students on 10 campuses and with online classes. All ages. Many interests. Flexible scheduling. With an exceptional range of academic and career-oriented options.
The Problem
VITALITY was able to demonstrate that the college’s “resting” peak demand was around 750 kw, yet the college was being billed at a peak demand of over 1,000 kw. Vitality continued to monitor the kw and quickly noticed that the peak demand was happening consistently every night at a very specific time.
What Our Team Found
After the college was unsuccessful at identifying the cause of the peak demand themselves, they hired VITALITY to help identify the cause of the peak kw. By watching each sub meter carefully, VITALITY was able to identify that the peak was coming from the main distribution panel of the campus, before hitting any of the sub-panels. This narrowed the search, and from there it was discovered that the installers of a city-owned water tower had inadvertently connected their pumps to the load side of the college’s utility meter.
Programming & Commissioning
After the implementation of the energy meters during the construction phase. VITALITY oversaw the programming and commissioning of the energy meters. The commissioning included verifying correct installation, placement and manufacturer guidelines for data accuracy. VITALITY programmed all of the meters to communicate back to a central data acquisition server that would be pushing all the data back to the VITALITY software platform.
Services Provided
Engineering
& Design
Programming & Commissioning
Identify
Cause Of Peak Demand
Design Build Metering
Savings
Energy: 200kw in peak demand + optimized utility rate schedule
Dollar: $25,000 / year in kw+ $20,000 in utility fees
Vitality is one of the easiest vendors that we have worked with. They just get things done.
- Daniel Hansen, Director of Controls
Impact
Using information provided through the VITALITY platform, VITALITY was able to identify the problem as well as offer a solution to the college for reducing their peak demand. The implementation of this solution would provide a net decrease of an estimated 200 kw/month. By reducing the peak demand to less than 1,000 kw/month, the college would also be able to change their utility rate schedule to a more favorable rate schedule.
20
Buildings
139
Meters
100%
Vitality Platform
