Energy Manager Saves Energy, Optimizes Real Estate, Cuts Costs
Note: This is the third in a series. To read the first post, see “Getting Buildings and People In Sync.” For the second post, “Cut Electrical Use, Get ‘Stimulused,’ and Earn LEED Credits.”
What if someone invented a simple, affordable device you quickly attach to your car to save you gas? Genius, right?
Well then, check this out. It’s Herman Miller’s new Energy Manager—a simple, affordable device you quickly attach to your Herman Miller systems furniture (new or retrofit) to save you electrical energy, 24/7.
Energy Manager is an easy solution to a major problem: A lot of energy and money is being wasted in facilities today. Chances are if you look around your facility, you’ll see too many workstations unoccupied for hours at a time with task lights, printers, computers, and chargers turned on, needlessly consuming energy, day and night.
That’s why Herman Miller developed Energy Manager. Part of the company’s Programmable Environments initiative, it makes your systems furniture smarter and it gives you more control over your environment.
Here’s how. Energy Manager controls two of the four circuits of power in a cluster of workstations. When a person sits down to work, an occupancy sensor detects their presence and turns on the devices in the cluster plugged into those two circuits. After the person leaves, the devices automatically turn off.
The results can be dramatic—and valuable to you and the environment. For example, take battery chargers that are always left on. Small potatoes, right? But 5% of energy is wasted on battery chargers not in use.
Energy Manager can also be connected to a Convia programmable gateway so it can measure and monitor occupancy data from every workstation—which workstations are occupied, when, and for how long during a day. Energy Manager uses this data to generate detailed occupancy reports that help you optimize floor plans to reduce real estate costs.
Genius, right? The folks at Herman Miller’s LA showroom think so, too.