Helping Your Green-Conscious Clients Find an Energy Specialist
By Randy Stearns, President, Engineered Environments

Most clients will first want to establish a baseline for their current energy consumption problems when they discuss switching out amps and TVs for more energy-efficient gear, modifying a control system with custom programming for energy management, or adding alternative energy solutions, by performing a comprehensive energy audit. Presuming that most electronic systems contractors don’t have the instrumentation or knowledge to conduct the necessary tests and the tools to analyze these results in-house, I’d recommend that you partner with a home-performance specialist in your area.

A quick Google keyword search for "home," "building performance contractors (or consultants)," or "energy audits," along with your city name, will turn up plenty of potential partners to investigate. Some states even have building-performance contractor associations. Research, interview the top candidates, and select a professional energy audit partner who can assist in providing this valuable service. Who knows? Maybe your new partner will bring you some business in return.

To assist you to evaluate and select an energy audit partner, it will help to have a blueprint of how professional energy audits are conducted. Energy audits generally involve four steps:

• Energy Survey — Most auditors start with an energy survey that queries size, age, and construction of the house, number and age of residents, residents’ schedules, lifestyle, and energy-usage patterns, and details about the HVAC and other systems in the home. This survey may be conducted electronically, by phone, or in person. The auditor also will request energy bills from the past 12 to 24 months.
  
  
• On-Site Energy Audit — This comprehensive on-site visit can take up to an entire day or more, depending on the size and complexity of the house, its construction, and the systems (HVAC, electrical and lighting, plumbing, and pumping).
  
  The visit will include: (a) evaluating the building envelope and exterior by surveying building materials, insulation levels, exposures, fenestration, shading and vegetation, and performing pressure and air-flow tests to assess and map air flow, leakage, and infiltration; (b) collecting, or preparing to collect, on-site data by taking measurements, nameplate data, and photos, obtaining hours of system and equipment operation and installing monitoring and logging devices; and (c) assessing renewable energy potential by determining solar access for photovoltaic and/or solar thermal systems, determining prevailing local wind conditions, fuel cell options, geothermal potential and other cogeneration possibilities, and comparing electricity consumption versus potential energy production to optimize system size and minimize cost.
  
  The auditor may also contact various service providers and maintenance companies to learn more about the systems installed and their performance history.
  
  
• Analysis and Simulation — Many auditors use simulation software to analyze the information collected in the energy survey, local weather information, and data from the resident’s energy bill. This evaluation and analysis tool produces charts and graphs detailing energy and cost breakdowns by equipment type and fuel (e.g. gas, electric).
  
  
• Energy Report and Recommendations — Finally, the auditor should generate a report that presents the results of the energy audit, benchmarks the energy consumption in the home to other homes of a similar size in the local area, and makes recommendations pertaining to energy savings, energy efficiency, and renewable energy options including anticipated ROI, utility incentives, rebate analysis, and paybacks.

The goal of this process is that the recommendations made in the audit report points to a substantial amount of energy efficiency and savings that would come from work proposed and performed by your firm.

Randy Stearns is president of Alameda, Calif.-based Engineered Environments. For more information, e-mail Stearns.

Reprinted with permission from Residential Systems magazine, a publication of NewBay Media focusing on the systems integration profession.  NewBay is one of the world's largest media and information resources for professionals and enthusiasts within the pro audio, broadcast and video, musical instruments, systems integration and K-12 education vertical markets. With 40 publications and show dailies, 50 Web sites, 30 daily and weekly e-newsletters and three national expos, the company reaches more than 3 million people around the world every month around the world.

< Previous Article | Next Article >

[ return to top ]