Real Dollars and Cents: Customer Details Energy Savings with Remote Boiler Monitoring

Recently, we were fortunate to sit down with an existing client to review their savings with the REMForce remote boiler monitoring system.

Building Background

The building is a 4-suite senior’s home in Saskatchewan and in additional to adding REMForce’s remote monitoring device, the building underwent a number of other changes. H This building had a conventional single boiler with two residential domestic hot water heaters. Historically, the building has also had a lot of issues with ice damming on the roof due to the leaky makeup air ductwork in the attic. During the period of evaluation the single boiler was change to two high efficient boilers, the two residential water heaters were removed, and a storage tank that uses the boilers to heat the domestic hot water was added. The makeup air was re-routed so that it goes directly from the makeup air unit into the common area, without going through the attic.

Energy Savings

The most common method for calculating energy saving is comparing energy bills from one year to the next. Using the “degree day” method for calculating energy savings.

From December 3, 2013 to May 28, 2014 (176 days) 26,966 cuM of natural gas was used.

From September 2, 2014 to February 26, 2015 (177 days) 13,943 cuM of natural gas was used.

Using the degree day (dd) method there were 7940 dd between Dec 3, 2013 and May 28, 2014., and there were 8047 dd between Sep 2, 2014 and Feb 26, 2015.

With natural gas at $0.21 per cuM we see that with the old boiler system we were using $0.713 per degree day. With the new heating system we are using $0.364 per dd.

At this location the average degree day for a year is 11,359. So with the old heating system the yearly heating cost would be $8099 and with the new system it will be $4,135 for a total savings of $3,964 per year.

Conclusion

The energy cost was nearly cut in half, and there are several contributing factors the big drop in energy bills. According to our client, the biggest factor is the re-routing of the makeup air system. In the past a great deal of energy was used to heat the attic. So it is likely that almost half of the energy saving could be attributed to this change.

The second big energy saving would be the removal of the old boiler and replacing it with new and more efficient ones. This was also the most expensive part of this upgrade but a necessary upgrade in this building.

The third energy saving was the addition of the remote monitoring device. It was very apparent that soon after the new boilers where installed that they did not run properly. It took four visits by technicians to fine tune this heating plant so that it ran as smooth as possible.

Lastly the building domestic hot water heaters were replaced with a storage tank that uses the more efficient boilers to heat domestic hot water.

Further energy savings are anticipated in the upcoming year as they continue to monitor and improve the boilers and heating systems performance.