The Ecobee energy management system (EMS) is specifically designed for the small footprint commercial market.
It is ideal in applications where a simple programmable thermostat does not provide adequate controls and functionality or a full-scale building automation system is too complex and cost prohibitive. The Ecobee EMS is user-friendly, reduces a building’s operating costs and delivers increased energy conservation.
Through a dedicated management internet portal, users can remotely monitor, identify, analyse and troubleshoot performance issues. Users can manage the temperature and operational settings from a central location and take action without having to send a technician on-site reducing the need for technician visits.
Installation is straightforward and commissioning set-up efficient with its intuitive programming, allowing users to manage an unlimited number of thermostats in multiple locations across diverse geographies. Configuration allows for grouping of thermostats and multiple users with the flexibility to provide each user with varying degrees of accessibility and operating permissions.
Installing Ecobee EMS thermostats delivers savings by ensuring all HVAC units ran according to standard schedules, limiting control by users at the on-site location, enabling remote trouble shooting and diagnostics and reducing the number of site calls.
At one North American retail location where Ecobee was installed, the original programmable thermostats did not have coordinated timing and were not programmed as unoccupied during weekends and holidays. With no method of checking the programming side-by-side it was virtually impossible to detect the discrepancies. The Ecobee EMS allows thermostats to be grouped together such that all thermostats can run the same setback and holiday schedules without having to program the thermostats individually.
By running the standard program and programming for weekends and holidays the estimated savings for the site were CAN$2,324 annually.
Within the first three months of installation of the Ecobee EMS, the property management group received two service calls from the retail location because the temperature at the location felt uncomfortable and the branch manager requested a temperature change from 200C to 220C.
Normally this would have required a service call to unlock the plastic box and make the changes at a cost of CAN$200.
The Ecobee EMS allows temporary hold actions to be performed at the retail location within a limited temperature range. In addition to allowing these changes to be made directly at the retail location, they can also be made by the property manager through the EMS web portal. Local control, or remote control through the web portal, saved the cost of two service calls in the first three months. By providing limited local control, the property manager was also able to return the occupied temperature from 220C to 200C further reducing energy costs without impacting comfort and productivity.
The annual estimated savings from allowing the change to be made through the Ecobee
EMS web portal and reducing the occupied temperature is CAN$1121.
During the initial test period, one of the rooftop units stopped working correctly over the weekend. This caused the temperature in the building to drop below 140C. The Ecobee EMS sent out a low temperature alarm and allowed an online operator to diagnose this issue and arrange a support call over the weekend when the retail location was not being used. With the previous programmable thermostats, this situation would not have been detected until staff arrived on Monday morning resulting in a branch closure for some period of the work day impacting customers and staff.
The two Ecobee EMS thermostats were installed at a cost of CAN$1,000 each ($750 cost and $250 installation) resulting in a total cost of $2,000. The estimated annual savings for the Ecobee EMS thermostats, not including productivity gains from remote diagnostics is $3,445.
The return on investment (ROI) on the Ecobee EMS is 72 per cent and the payback
is approximately seven months.
The customer has other locations which do not use programmable thermostats, with those locations added to the Ecobee installation the ROI will be much higher and the payback much quicker.
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