Enigin News

Enigin News

Enigin Can Help Jim To Sleep

Jim Brown is a middle school teacher in Colonie, near Albany New York State, and he is known to stalk the hallways and classrooms of all the schools in his district at night!

Why does this respected educator perform such strange activities?

The answer - to save energy.

Jim doesn’t do this as an ardent tree-hugger or environmental campaigner, he does it because of money as he gets paid over $25,000 extra a year to be the District’s Energy Educator. He warrants this extra money as over the past nine years he has saved the district $2.7 million. 

Apart from these nocturnal activities he also writes a regular energy saving articles in the Districts faculty newsletter, informing colleagues how to save energy and money through behavior change, resulting in the saving stated above.

Jim often sets off to different schools while his wife and children sleep in their beds but the dead of night actions are not because of insomnia. Jim visits the school out of hours after the custodians have left, so he monitors what is left on or running, what is running inefficiently and where it is too warm or chilled for an empty building. In other words he is seeing what needs switching off or turning down.

Is all Jim’s efforts needed? The saving would suggest it pays off, but Jim could do the same from home, saving even more energy and effort.
If the District’s 10 schools installed Enigin’s Eniscope, a real-time energy monitor, along with the software and public interface Jim could see what the base energy use was in each of the schools from his own computer and he could see where there were anomalies.

This was recently highlighted at the Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida, when an Eniscope revealed unusual energy use during the night-time hours when the staff were tucked up in bed. Changes led to over 40% energy save – check out the details here.

Back in Colonie if Eniscope’s were installed, Jim’s efforts at informing others of energy savings would be supported by the Eniscope’s public display set up in each school. This display, typically on a large screen, would reveal to faculty and pupils the effects of their actions to save energy in real-time, helping deep-seated behavior change.

Jim may still have to go out stalking at night to discover what is increasing the energy use in a particular facility, but it would be far less frequent and far more targeted. The Eniscope will also reveal where other technologies can be implemented to intelligently and automatically control lighting, equipment along with heating and ventilation.

Jim could do more, save more and restrict his night stalking by turning to Enigin and their energy saving solutions.

Wednesday 27th January 2010