The Gray Freshwater Center, the Freshwater Society’s home in Excelsior, is one of two top winners in an energy-conservation competition that included buildings across the Twin Cities.
In the competition – sponsored by the Building Owners and Managers Associations of Greater Minneapolis and St. Paul and Xcel Energy – owners of 74 participating buildings cut their annual electrical use by 9 million kilowatt-hours.
The Gray Freshwater Center was judged the highest-performing building in its size category, and it won the overall top prize in the Minneapolis of the conservation completion. Read the Xcel news release announcing the winners of the Kilowatt Crackdown competition.
The Freshwater energy savings resulted from an assessment and retro-commissioning of mechanical systems within the 40-year-old building. The study led to programming changes in the building’s ventilation automation systems, a switch to daytime cleaning hours and the addition of variable-frequency drives on motors.
Based on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formula, the 9 million kilowatt-hours of electricity saved by all the building taking part in the contest was enough to power 715 homes for a year. And the savings in carbon dioxide emissions from the reduced electrical demand is equivalent to taking 1,325 vehicles off the road.