Control Technique Cuts Electricity Bills for Commercial Buildings
Research engineers have
shown that electricity costs for office buildings can be
reduced by up to 40 percent by running air conditioning
overnight.
"Pre-cooling" structures so that it takes less power to cool
buildings during times of peak demand is not a new
technique. But engineers at Purdue University are the first
researchers to create a computer-simulation tool that can
be "tuned" to a specific building and used to document the
savings that would be realized by using the technique for
that specific building. The analysis tool takes into account
factors including utility rates and climate, and it can be
used to tailor the best pre-cooling strategy for individual
buildings.