EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio — GE Lighting and Trane, a brand of Ingersoll Rand, have announced a new way for building owners to control the largest consumers of energy in commercial buildings — HVAC and lighting — with a combined solution for energy management.

The companies said GE’s LightSweep™ Modular Lighting Control Solution can now be seamlessly integrated into the Trane Tracer™ centralized building automation system (BAS), enabling users to implement advanced control strategies across both lighting and HVAC systems.

“Building owners and managers want one easy-to-use system to monitor and control the two biggest energy costs for commercial buildings — HVAC and lighting,” said Jaime Irick, general manager for GE Lighting North America Professional Solutions. “By integrating GE’s LightSweep solution into the Trane Tracer system, the whole is more than the sum of the parts and offers a window into improved energy management practices for facility professionals.”

GE’s LightSweep Modular Lighting Control Solution allows on-off, dimming, group control, and scheduling capabilities for indoor and outdoor lighting systems. With the tight connectivity to Trane Tracer, building managers can perform all of these functions and pull energy usage reports remotely from a web browser. The same platform connects with heating and cooling controls as well as other building systems.

Trane said its Tracer BAS is a high-performance building automation system based on open standards that integrates building systems for maximum operational and energy efficiency. The system has full mobile capability to allow access and operation of the system from any laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

“Building owners have told us they are looking for one system rather than several stand-alone systems to manage energy use and comfort,” said Dave Regnery, president of Trane North America. “This new Trane solution makes it easier for owners and managers to create an intelligent building — one that integrates its systems in order to optimize performance.”

For more information on the Trane Tracer system, visit http://trane.com/COMMERCIAL/Controls/Default.aspx?i=875.

Publication date: 5/13/2013