Leading Edge Design Group

An interesting phenomenon has begun to happen when we discuss energy efficiency in meetings and seminars.  The topic has become so commonplace that our clients start to get that glazed over look implying, “I’ve heard it all before.”  This is an unfortunate byproduct of the hype and marketing that many companies currently employ to sell their new, more “efficient” products. The true message of energy efficient design is getting lost in the noise.

Practicing energy efficiency is, on the surface, replacing light bulbs and buying Energy Star appliances, motors, etc… but there are also many who utilize vigorous demand reduction practices, utilizing both passive and active measures to reduce their energy consumption. Passive measures are considered to be the above mentioned product replacements with their more efficient versions while active solutions employ systems that help control the environment, such as daylight harvesting, occupancy sensors, VFD drive and control packages. These combined efforts are significantly more effective than passive alone, and can provide a considerable reduction in a facility’s energy consumption. But we are still avoiding the root of the problem: people. Strategies that focus on energy optimization are designed to leverage the technologies available with passive and active energy management tools, combined with system-wide education, monitoring and feedback. We must employ the people that interact with and design the systems to work in an efficient manner.

More...

Enfield, NH – May 15, 2010 – Leading Edge Design Group, a leading provider of energy optimization services, announced today that they have earned two substantial initial data center energy rebate offers for their customers.  Both offers apply to new construction projects on data centers currently being implemented.

The offers of $85,000 and $60,000, respectively, have been offered to customers of Leading Edge Design Group based on the energy efficiency of the data center design.  In addition, the offers have been presented by two different utility companies based on the location of the individual project.  “We have, and will continue to, work diligently with utility companies to encourage recognition for our customers that are implementing energy efficient designs for their data center,” said Gary Hubbard, Energy Efficiency Program Manager at Leading Edge Design Group.  “We are extremely encouraged by the recent rebate offers our clients have received for their energy efficient data center design and look forward to working closely with utility companies around the country to earn rebates for our customers going forward.” 

Leading Edge Design Group will provide detailed overview of each individual offer at the completion of the data center construction.  Questions in the interim can be directed to Gary Hubbard at gdh@ledesigngroup.com. 

I see it happening all too often on majority of the projects I’ve been involved with, Value Added Engineering (VAE).  The concept of VAE as a whole is fine with me, but the concept that needs to be addressed is the “Hey let’s take a look at this project as whole, and find areas where we can substitute Product A with Product B and save us X amount of dollars.”  As I said, I have no problem with this process, it happens on a large number of big and small projects, but it’s time owners take a different approach to VAE rather than just to eliminate up front cost.

Let’s imagine you the reader are an owner of a new building that’s in the process of being built. The reason you hire all these contractors and designers is because it’s their job to design it to your requirements.  Whoever is running the project for you tells you that the project is going to cost $1 million and you start to panic because the budget was $800K.  VAE is then suggested to cut costs and you say go for it, and a week later you get a new VAE budget of 750K.  Everything is great right?  Your project is under budget, and you are ready to go.

More...

For anyone who is even remotely involved in the energy related world, LED lighting has to be gaining traction in your conversations daily. About a year ago the LED lighting world was literally like the Wild, Wild West, with every manufacturer of LED lighting scrambling to get LED products on the market as it became increasingly evident that this was where the lighting world was going- and going quickly!

While the dust is far from settled from this stampede, several factors became glaringly obvious- with the most important factor being the need for a standard or set of standards by which to evaluate LED lighting products for the quality of the light they produce, the relative efficiencies of LED’s compared to prevailing technologies, the longevity of the product and the applications where LED lighting will reign and where they will not. Since this LED technology had been relegated to flash lights and exit signs up until now, there was no established means for testing and evaluating LED’s for the applications which they are now being applied. Meanwhile the race was on full speed ahead and the field was getting crowded.

More...

Well the 80s were the glory days of energy initiative programs, and as is typical for all large programs that are governed by political machines they became more complicated and cumbersome. The ability to stay ahead or simply keep up with the technology becomes impossible. And this brings us to where we are today in the world of utility-run energy initiative programs.

Since these energy initiatives are primarily based on technological advancements that allow for more output with less power consumption, it is paramount that these programs keep up with the emerging technologies. Otherwise the program committees get caught up in the bureaucracies involved in the approval of products for their programs, and once the approved product list finally makes it into the program schedule they are in some cases ‘old technology’. Far superior products might have been introduced to the market place which would clearly out-perform the ‘approved’ products, but since they are not recognized on the ‘approved’ product schedule the utility company cannot come to grips on how to evaluate them and subsequently provide incentives through their programs.

So the consumer is only provided incentives from the utility company to implement technologies that may not be in their best interest, or in some cases in the best interest of the environment. But they qualify for the money by using products whose technology could be two years old- a virtual lifetime in some technological circles.

More...