Comverge understands the immediate need to help schools become sustainable, and our solutions provide educational facilities with the means to accomplish this.

From small elementary schools to sprawling college campuses, education administrators face growing challenges as energy costs continue to spiral and energy resources dwindle.

Comverge has helped many different types of schools realize energy and money-saving opportunities including:

• Improving the efficiency of indoor air quality and temperature systems
• Automate load shedding
• Provide innovative solutions through expert analysis of the educational facility's energy infrastructure
• Decrease total energy use spent in lighting

Case in point
The College of New Jersey in Ewing, New Jersey wanted to integrate campus metering into an existing Honeywell building automation system (BAS) to enable effective load management and automate the load shed.

Comverge was selected to supply and install 50 metering devices and related monitoring software, as well as a central work station for communicating with the meters and existing BAS. Our turnkey solution gave the College the ability to monitor and manage load in real time by shedding load automatically and provided easy analysis of the facility's information with accurate diagnosis from multiple sources.

Comverge assisted in identifying usual energy usage patterns. Through user-defined, customized reports, Comverge located quality issues and addressed these through existing operational resources.

Through the use of a multitude of products and services, Comverge proposed, explained, and justified the approach and equipment that would accomplish the customer's goals, while mitigating overall cost. Since implementing Comverge's solutions, the College has enjoyed the following benefits:

• Achieved approximately $170,000 to $240,000 in savings per year in demand and consumption charges
• Received the ability to understand and manage energy usage on a building-by-building basis
• Predicted new peaks before they were reached
• Obtained automated load shed to avoid defined-level peak
• Enabled a quick response to electrical issues and faster problem solving
• Allowed for informed decisions on projects involving energy-using equipment
• Facilitated flexibility in future enhancements for reducing electricity costs

Comverge creates a win-win solution
A leading university was looking for creative ways to reduce their energy consumption, thus lowering their overall energy cost. Comverge was selected to conduct:

• An initial onsite assessment to determine immediate load shedding opportunities utilizing existing technology such as the ice storage system and registration.
• An additional site evaluation to determine the potential for using other technologies such as load drop utilizing building automation system, on-site generation, and conservation.

Since July 2006, the program has earned approximately $4.5 million by reducing the drain on the regional grid during times when electricity demand is at its highest. With no up-front capital costs to implement the initial program, savings were seen almost immediately, resulting in a "win-win" for the university.

University reduces costs with help from Comverge
A leading university wanted to decrease their overall energy cost by reducing energy consumption. Comverge installed meters to assist in assessing energy usage and enrolled the University in the Economic Real-Time Demand Response Program through PJM.

• An initial onsite assessment identified immediate load shedding opportunities utilizing existing technology such as ice storage system and registration.
• An additional site evaluation determined the potential for using other technologies such as load drop utilizing building automation system and conservation.

Since June 2006, the program has earned the University over $64,000 in PJM payments and an additional $34,800 in conservation savings. In less than six months, the University earned enough money to cover the metering costs.

Comverge saves school district thousands
During the initial phase of a district-wide energy efficiency program, a K-12 School District turned to Comverge for the installation of interval electrical data meters for project measurement and verification.

• The data collected validated an annual energy savings in excess of $500,000 through three project phases.
• Recently, the meters have been utilized for load reduction verification and settlement purposes for the PJM Economic Real-Time Demand Response Program.
• Participation in the demand response program resulted in revenues of $27,000 in the first six months.