Prentice School

The Customer

The Prentice School is a K-8 school in Santa Ana focused on supporting students with dyslexia and other special needs. Consisting of multiple buildings and dozens of classrooms, the campus relied on manual HVAC and lighting controls, and they could not effectively manage their energy consumption. As the school was moved to Time-of-Use rate scheduling, their utility costs jumped dramatically due to high consumption energy peaks during the 2-8pm time frame, and the school realized they needed assistance in order to fully understand how to better improve their energy efficiency and reduce costs.

The Problem

Following a new Time-of-Use schedule that Prentice was put on, the school saw its energy bill increase 40% due to costs from peak demand charge rates. The school had no building automation systems or controls, and no way to identify the equipment or times where energy consumption was peaking. With no insight into the peaks responsible for the bill increases, Prentice made the decision to invest in Intech’s Energy360 solution in order to optimize the school’s equipment and improve their energy consumption.

Solution

Through an on-bill financing program financed by Southern California Edison, Prentice School was able to work with EMCOR and InTech Energy to implement Energy360 as an energy management tool to monitor the school’s energy and provide pinpoint data insights on the campus’ peak times of consumption. They also deployed Energy360’s HVAC and lighting controls to optimize the timing of equipment operation to reduce and manage their energy demand.

Results

InTech’s solution:

• Yielded 44,000 kWh in savings, a 19% decrease.
• Shaved peak demand by ramping the HVAC equipment up and down.
• Reduced overall hours of operations.
• Extended the equipment’s useful life.