When you think of sustainability initiatives, you probably think of projects like lighting retrofits and green landscaping. As sustainable practices become more important to building owners and tenants alike, however, property teams are eager to find more ways to be energy efficient and have a real impact on their carbon footprint.
What many property teams don’t realize is that there are ways you can have a huge impact on your energy usage, without a major retrofit (and the costs that go with it). Our customers are using Genea’s software to drive sustainability at their buildings and have great results to show for it.
What Role Does HVAC Play in Sustainability?
HVAC is the biggest contributor to a building’s carbon footprint. Overtime HVAC is a major culprit for wasted energy, but is often overlooked for the sake of comfort and convenience. In buildings that use a manual process for after hours air requests, tenants will often submit recurring requests for when they think might need overtime air as opposed to when they actually do. This leads to equipment being run and energy being used even when a tenant doesn’t use their office space during the requested hours and is hugely wasteful.
Similarly, property teams will often keep their buildings at lower or higher temperatures than necessary on weekends and minor holidays, when tenants aren’t in the building, to avoid “losing” it. These “just in case” scenarios lead to equipment depreciation, high costs, and massive amounts of unnecessary energy use.
Automating your after hours HVAC process and going on-demand is the most energy and cost-efficient solution to eliminate wasteful heating and cooling practices. Genea’s Overtime HVAC software allows tenants to request after hours HVAC service when they need it, fulfills that request through your existing building management system, and even handles the billing — no matter how complex. By automating the process and going on-demand, buildings only run when they really need to.
What Impact Does Going On-Demand Really Have?
We published a case study about a Class A office building in Florida, operating at 89% occupancy, that saw a 45% overall revenue increase after implementing Genea’s OTHVAC software. The award-winning building, which had already implemented several sustainability programs, achieved $27,482 in additional energy savings by only running their equipment when it was truly needed (and that takes into consideration the additional energy needed to fulfill the increased number of requests). Read the full case study here. That sort of annual return can have a massive impact on a building’s sustainability goals.
Don’t Forget About Submeters!
Another trend we’re seeing in our customer buildings is the rise of submetering. While submeters used to be used strictly for above standard utility usage, buildings are increasingly submetering all tenants to engage them in building-wide sustainability efforts. Depending on your building, this could require a hardware investment, but making tenants aware of and engaged with their utility usage can have a significant impact on their involvement in your sustainability efforts.
What Our Customers are Saying
We’re seeing the success of our solutions in supporting sustainability practices across the country. We have multiple customers that have been named as 2019 Energy State Partners of the Year. Cushman & Wakefield even recognized Genea as an innovative technology helping them to improve heating and cooling performance – which reduces energy and saves money for their buildings.
How Can We Support You?
Visit our Overtime HVAC and Submeter Billing solution pages to explore how our software can help save your building energy, or click below to set up a call with a member of our team and we can discuss your situation in more detail.