DENVER - Dean Evans & Associates, along with Automated Energy and Facilities Management Group (AEFMG), announced the successful integration of Dean Evans' Event Management System (EMS) facility and resource scheduling program with the heating and cooling system at a church campus in Texas via AEFMG's new ThermoNightHawk (TNH) interface. The interface uses room occupancy information from EMS to control thermostats throughout a facility, automatically bringing a room to the desired temperature prior to a scheduled meeting or event and then shifting to a more energy-efficient temperature setting when the room has been vacated. Energy consumption figures at the Texas site show savings of up to 22 percent ($2,000-3,000 per month) in a 70,000-square-foot facility.

AEFMG president Norbert Schulz said that the idea for the TNH interface was a natural extension of the church's desire to have thermostats throughout their campus accessible via the computer network. "Once the thermostats were connected to the network, I realized we could link them to EMS," he said. "Establishing communication between EMS and the church's thermostats via TNH meant that simply reserving a room also established heating and cooling set points for the event without any added work on the part of scheduling or facility maintenance staff."

In addition to energy savings, the client site also benefits from reduced labor costs. Bill Holt, director of technical services for AEFMG, estimates that the elimination of three man-hours per day for the pre-event setting and post-event resetting of thermostats saves the church nearly $8,000 per year.

"It took roughly a year of design, programming, testing, and fine tuning through all seasons to develop the ThermoNightHawk interface," said Ram Sangam, director of software development. "But the effort has paid off with a product that is both powerful and flexible."

"There are a variety of ways in which the room occupancy information maintained in EMS can be leveraged to help facilities operate more efficiently," said Kevin Raasch, executive vice president of Dean Evans & Associates. "The TNH interface is a great example of how an organization can capitalize on an existing asset - their scheduling data - to realize significant energy and manpower savings."

For more information on Dean Evans & Associates, visit www.dea.com. For more information on Automated Energy and Facilities Management Group, visit www.aefmg.com.

Publication date: 07/03/2006