Schneider to do retrofits on federal buildings

Schneider Electric GSA Energy Retrofits deliver 14% energy savings, $4.7M cost reductions, 900 kW solar, BAS integration, HVAC upgrades, lighting retrofits, and EPC financing to cut carbon emissions and meet EISA 2007 compliance.

The federal General Services Administration's Region 7 has awarded Schneider Electric an $18.5 million energy savings performance contract to perform energy retrofits to 16 federal buildings in Texas.

Schneider's Buildings business unit, which is based in Carrollton, Texas, guarantees that the project will result in a total savings of $4.7 million over the duration of the five-year contract. The company also guarantees a 14-percent energy savings, as well as a reduction in carbon emissions by 7,109 greenhouse gas tons per year, illustrating smart grid benefits observed across the industry.

Schneider Electric is designing, engineering and implementing the retrofits to reduce energy use and costs, make use of renewable energy, drawing on advanced research partnerships with academia, and comply with current laws and regulations such as the requirements laid out in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The company guarantees the amount of savings its energy savings performance contracting projects will achieve and agrees to pay the difference if that amount is not realized.

To pay for the project, the GSA is investing funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and related smart grid stimulus funding across the country, as well as three years' worth of private sector financing, in which the money saved from reduced energy consumption will be used to repay the loan. The project will be completed in August 2011.

Schneider Electric will implement energy conservation measures throughout the 16 facilities' more than 7.3 million square feet of space to achieve the targeted energy savings. The measures include installation of nearly one megawatt of photovoltaic solar panels, boiler replacement, an optimized chilled water system, informed by smart grid deployments at municipal utilities, building automation system upgrades, a data center controls upgrade, and an interior lighting fixtures and controls retrofit. The company will reduce water use through upgrades to the existing irrigation system controls.

Schneider Electric will integrate the various building automation systems BAS throughout the federal facilities to reduce energy consumption and support broader grid modernization efforts across agencies. By consolidating control of the BAS to one web server on a common multivendor platform, Schneider Electric will provide GSA with a single operations tool that will allow property managers to collaborate with energy engineering staff members to monitor, schedule, optimize and control the facilities' energy use.

When completed, the retrofits will give GSA Region 7 facilities the capacity to generate 900 kilowatts of renewable power. The project will help lower GSA's risk of rising energy costs, much like BGE's smart grid initiative in the utility sector, and will enable the agency to meet current requirements for renewable energy production at federal sites. The reduced carbon emissions that will be achieved through the project are equivalent to taking 1,663 cars off the roads annually, or planting 2,456 acres of trees to restore balance to the ecosystem.

Buildings receiving the energy retrofits include Fort Worth Federal Center, Fort Worth Federal Parking Garage, Fort Worth U.S. Courthouse, A. Maceo Smith Federal Building, Terminal Annex Federal Building, Dallas Federal Complex, O.C. Fisher Federal Building and Courthouse, J. Marvin Jones Federal Building, Lubbock Post Office and Federal Building, Austin Federal Courthouse, and Austin Federal Building Complex.

Similar federal support has aided utilities, including BGE smart grid grant recipients, underscoring the wider deployment of advanced systems.

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