The technology behind variable frequency drives (VFDs) has been around for over forty five years and involved in HVAC for over twenty five years. However, many people remain in the dark as to how much energy and money VFDs save. The truth is VFDs are one of the best ways to make a building greener and save energy. Half the electricity used in a building is a direct result of pumping air and water through the buildings HVAC systems.

Most fans and pumps are oversized or sized for worst-case-conditions which means they are running at over capacity most of the time. By adding a VFD you can control or modulate the speed of the fan or pump to match the required need. The faster you drive your car the more gas your car uses; the slower you drive the better your gas mileage. But because of the affinity law for motors and pumps the savings from using VFDs are huge.

For example, if you reduce the speed of your pump by 10% you use 21% less energy, 20% means a 49% energy reduction, and 30% equals a 66% reduction in energy used.

In addition to energy savings, enhancing a pump or motor with a VFD will almost double its life expectancy. Given that most fans and pumps are expensive, this saving, in and of itself, may justify the cost of adding a VFD.

Improvements in VFD technology over the last several years including ease of set up and installation have made it easy to understand why VFDs result in a quick return on investment and have become the first thing energy experts look at when they want to make a building more green and cost efficient.

Are you or your company involved in making the world a greener planet? Tell the world! Comment below. Leave a link to your website and your Company Facebook page. You never know who will find YOU on Controltrends!

Functional Devices has developed a plug and play Evaporator Fan Controller the Functional Devices EFC 4045T for walk-in coolers and freezers that can significantly reduce energy costs –  with a potential 2-year payback! They are great for convenience stores, restaurants, schools, hospitals, hotels, etc – anywhere that has walk-in refrigerators and/or freezers. Check out this video to see the EFC 4045T

The fans in the evaporator boxes run at normal speed at all times, even if the thermostat is not calling for a cooling cycle.  To save money, the controller monitors the temperature on both the intake and the exhaust of the evaporator fan unit.  When the temperature of the exhaust is equal to the intake temp, the controller will reduce the speed of the fans to save energy and reduce costs.  When the compressor turns back on the meet the thermostat requirements, the controllers will return the fans to normal speed.  Think of it as a mini VFD!

These Evaporator Fan Controllers have been installed and tested in several locations and have already proven their worth.  One convenience store installed two devices two years ago for testing and is saving an average of $200/month on his electric bill since installing them!  Now that’s great payback.  If you have walk-in coolers or freezers or have customers who do, you need to check out this new gem from Functional Devices.
For more information on the Functional Devices EFC 4045T controller you can contact Stromquist & Company if you are in Georgia or Florida or one of our affiliates at Controls Group North America.

Functional Devices has created an easy to install, low cost product that delivers big energy savings with their Functional Devices Half-Light series of lighting controls.

If you are looking for an easy way to save money on multiple ballast light fixtures
in classrooms and offices or on high bay fluorescent fixtures the Functional Devices Half-Light is a great low cost solution. The Functional Devices Half-Light installs in the wiring compartment of almost any light fixture and uses existing switches to start lighting up at 50% of capacity ( hence half-light). The lights than can easily be controlled to go to full capacity via a digital switch or a building automation system. Don’t let this simple strategy fool you the energy savings as indicated by this independent study can be huge. Lighting control strategies are one of the easiest ways to reduce energy consumption in commercial buildings.
If you are in Georgia or Florida contact Stromquist & Company for more information on the Functional Devices Half-Light, others can contact one of our affiliates at Controls Group North America

Wireless technology has advanced so much in the last few years and the acceptance and value of these controls is gaining immeasurably. All phases of the market have now been touched by wireless thermostats, controllers, and sensors including industrial, commercial and domestic applications.

For the domestic market Honeywell offers several programmable and non-programmable wireless thermostats (REDLINK) like the Prestige and the FocusPro that will allow the use of outdoor air sensors and return air sensors to control conventional and heat pump systems with up to 3 stages of heat and 2 stages of cooling. The thermostats are available with standard or high definition color touch screens.

On the commercial level AIC’s wireless transceivers allow for wireless data communications through BACnet, Modbus, LonWorks, and several other protocols. Applications include, remote lighting controls, building communication, HVAC controls, remote chiller plant operations, flow meter monitoring, KW metering, and gas metering. Check out this interview with ACI’s Bryan Pike for a more in-depthlook at all the great things that can be done with ACI wireless.

Honeywell Vulcain’s E3 point wireless control system monitors hazardous gas emissions in boiler rooms, chiller plants, and parking garages.

 On the Industrial level Honeywell has a variety of wireless gauges, transmitters, and receivers to make remote control of systems a breeze.

If you are trying to control something and the high costs of hard wiring is cost prohibitive, or the location is too remote look to Stromquist and Company to help you in your wireless needs. Call us at 1-800-241-9471 in Atlanta or 1-800-638-7828 in Orlando.

For more information on how to take advantage of this amazing frame work and make your building more intelligent contact Stromquist & Company. If you are in Georgia or Florida we can provide a site survey of your building, recommend a list of factory trained certified contractors to install or upgrade your control system, and even show you how to pay for your new system with energy tax credits and government approved tax deductions. If you are not in Georgia or Florida we will gladly refer you to a Controls Group North America distributor in your area.

If you have portable or modular classrooms you know how hard it is to implement energy saving temperature control strategies. Johnson Controls has the answer with the Johnson Controls T600 family of thermostat controllers.

To understand the elegance of the solution Johnson Controls provides with the T600 series of thermostat controllers, you must first understand the problem that portable classrooms provide from a control strategy perspective.

With school districts and universities across the country looking for ways to accommodate the increased demand for student classrooms, the portable or modular classroom proved to be a low cost solution. Over thirty six percent of the nation’s schools use these type of classrooms. Look around just about any school and you will see dozens of these classrooms adjacent to school buildings. These portable classrooms need heating, cooling, lights, and exhaust fans. To control them is not that difficult: a thermostat for the heating and air conditioning and a switch to turn the lights and fans on and off. Conserving energy in a portable classroom is another story. In Florida alone it is estimated that there are over 25,ooo portable classrooms each using more than 30 Kwh per day. That number gets even larger if the HVAC and lights are left to run in the occupied mode when the classroom is unoccupied.

One of the key energy savings strategies for portable classrooms is to reduce the electrical load by accurate temperature control and by making sure that temperature set points are set back during heating season and set up during cooling season when the class room is not occupied, and that the lights and fans are off when the class room is not being used. ASHRAE studies have shown energy savings as great as 36% to 47% implementing proper control and equipment strategies.

Time of day control strategies seem simple enough; either replace the thermostat in the portable classroom with a programmable thermostat or control your portable classrooms with your existing building automation system. The first option is not practical from a operation standpoint and the second option is usually too expensive. The challenge with programmable thermostats in portable classrooms is that the schedules in schools tend to change during the school year, and if you have a lot of portable classrooms you have to constantly send someone to reprogram the thermostats every time a change is made. Most school buildings have a building automation system that has the flexibility to either have all the holiday programs for the school year programmed in advance or the ability  to make a schedule change for an entire building with a simple key stoke. It would be ideal to use this system to control the portable classrooms, but because the classrooms are portable and not connected to the building the cost to run wire, including digging trenches, is usually too high.

Johnson Controls has a proven low cost solution. They have taken a very accurate programmable thermostat, added a passive infrared occupancy sensor and an extra relay. The result is simple but effective. You program your thermostat as you would any programmable thermostat, but during the occupied program times if the occupancy sensor does not sense movement after a programmed amount of time it puts the HVAC and whatever you have hooked up to the auxiliary relay in the unoccupied mode, guaranteeing your equipment only runs when the classroom is occupied.

Johnson Controls has several different models of the T600 series of thermostats that we stock at Stromquist & Company. The Johnson Controls Communicating Thermostats, the Johnson Controls TEC1100 thermostat, the Johnson Controls TEC210x-2 Thermostat you will note that have both Lon and BacNet versions, as well as the Johnson Controls Wireless thermostats.

As an extra incentive Stromquist Company is offering 10% off the following Johnson T600 thermostats through the end of October 2010:

Johnson Controls T600 HCN-4+PIR

Johnson Controls T600 HPN-4+PIR

Johnson Controls T600 MSN-4+PIR

 This special is only available when you order on line at our web store at www.stromquist.com

Be sure to check out Part 2. Mike gives a very in depth presentation on this great family of Johnson Controls thermostats.

With energy costs constantly rising and the desire to conserve energy, the need for “green” or sustainable buildings is critical. Due to changes in technology not only is it possible, it is expected on new construction projects and has gotten much easier and affordable to retrofit existing buildings. At the heart of theses changes is the adoption of open communication protocols such as Lon and BacNet by controls manufacturers and open framework and  software by companies like Tridium. This combination is leading a change in what is possible for building owners.

So what do you need to know to take advantage of this new technology?As a building owner the first thing you need to be aware of is how the controls industry has changed with the advent of open control protocols and how to leverage your options. For many years every control manufacturer had its own communication protocol. Honeywell systems spoke C Bus, Johnson Controls spoke N2 and so on. What that meant to you as a building owner was that whoever won on bid day was who would be controlling your building for a very long time. If you were not happy with your control system, the cost to change the system was so high that it was too expensive to change. This has changed with the Tridium and Honeywell AX systems that allow different manufacturers’ controls to talk on the same network. So if your system is open you have options that a closed or propriety system does not allow. The key is you must make sure to ask for a truly “open system.” To make sure you know what to ask for listen to theses interviews with Scott Cochrane and Brian Turner, who are two of the leading experts on open systems.

The second thing, which is great news for  building owners, is in the past you would have a different system and different software for your access security and your lighting controls. Now these systems have adopted open protocols that allow you to integrate all these different building functions into one software front-end, giving you “single seat building control.”  In addition to all the savings on hardware and software, you can create energy saving control strategies that were not possible in the past. Imagine, your key card access is now integrated with your HVAC and lighting systems in such a way that when someone enters the building the system is smart enough to know who the person is and turns on only the lights that lead to their office and in their office. When that person reaches their office the temperature is set for their preference. The system will also keep track of how long they are in the building and can even produce a monthly bill for off hours usage. For more on how integrating these systems can save energy be sure to check the interviews with Roger Rebennack Part One and Part Two.

With new open system technology the building automation system becomes the hub around which new energy savings strategies revolve. If you are in Georgia or Florida and would like more information on how to save energy in your building(s) contact  Stromquist & Company. All others can contact one of our affiliates at Controls Group North America.

Although we mainly focus on building automation and industrial wireless control products I am very impressed with the Honeywell Wireless Thermostat and the Red Link wireless technology that makes it all work. As one of the authorized stocking distributors for the Honeywell Wireless thermostat in Georgia and Florida all I can say is WOW, sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words so check out this video
I think you will agree there is a wireless thermostat and then there is the HONEYWELL WIRELESS THERMOSTAT.If you like what you see check out Stacie’s post on the Honeywell Focus Pro, and how to install a Honeywell Wireless Thermostat.

Stromquist & Company can take care of all your wireless thermostat needs in Georgia and Florida. If you are not a Stromquist & Company customer or are located in Georgia or Florida one of our affiliates at Controls Group North America can take care of your wireless thermostat needs.

Stromquist & Company is committed to saving our customers energy. Our part is to provide great control solutions from companies like  Tridium, Honeywell and Johnson Controls. Did you know how much money you could save ??? Check this video out and see

Stromqust and Company is a proud distributor of Watt Stopper Lighting products. You can also check out Eric’s interview with Pete Baselici on Stromquist Radio.