The Scarborough, ME office of the Siemens Industry, Inc. Building Technologies Division recently earned the ENERGY STAR label from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a result of its local employees’ efforts to reduce energy consumption and optimize building systems at the facility.
According to the EPA, the ENERGY STAR energy performance scale helps organizations assess the energy efficiency of their facilities relative to similar buildings. Commercial buildings that score 75 or higher on EPA’s 1 to 100 scale are considered efficient enough to achieve the designation. Siemens’ Scarborough office, which supports some 60 professional and technical employees, scored a 77 and now uses approximately 30% less energy than office buildings of similar size. ENERGY STAR is a joint program of the U.S. EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy; according to the program, those achieving ENERGY STAR rank in the top 25% of efficiently operated buildings nationwide.
“Siemens is committed to improving the sustainability of all its operations,” said Darcie Confar, Building Technologies’ New England regional sustainability champion. The achievement, explained Confar, marks a milestone for the company’s sustainability program, which calls for achieving the ENERGY STAR for all offices in the region.
To earn the label, Siemens implemented a variety of facility improvements and other measures. For example, Siemens energy engineers integrated occupancy sensors, originally implemented for lighting efficiency, with the facility’s Siemens APOGEE® Building Automation System to control HVAC system airflows when spaces are unoccupied. Similarly, the occupancy sensors and lighting system retrofits also contributed, reducing energy consumption by approximately 18%.
According to Siemens site manager Jeffrey Goranson, optimizing building and lighting systems was just the beginning: “A large part of our business today is helping our customers save money through energy reduction projects. We regularly provide energy benchmarking reports for our customers to help them evaluate how their fleet of buildings is performing. Being in the energy reduction business it only seemed logical that we walk the talk. Working through the Energy Star process for our local Siemens office,” said Goranson, “allowed us to better understand where we were spending our energy dollars. Our employees continue to look for ways to help lower our energy usage and to improve our sustainability efforts. It has been a team effort and we are very pleased with our results.”
