Commercial, Demand Management, Energy Efficiency  -  November 21, 2017

Building EMS yields 15% cost savings for Sprint

Communications services firm Sprint Corp., building on a long history of energy conservation efforts, is seeing significant savings related to the deployment of a building energy management system across its portfolio of retail stores. 

The system, initially implemented in 2012 to reduce energy costs by 15% with an anticipated 18-month return on investment, helps optimize lighting and heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems with cloud-based remote management software, according to a news release from Yardi Systems Inc., which developed the system it calls Prolophix. Additionally, the system continuously monitors temperatures, thermostat settings and potential equipment malfunctions. 

Sprint says its focus on implementing more sustainable operating practices has helped increase the size of its portfolio 30% by 2015 amid a challenging environment for brick and mortar retail. 

"An effective energy management system is absolutely necessary to maintaining low operational costs," Darrel Carter, enterprise energy manager for Sprint, said in a statement. "Proliphix represents an excellent investment for our portfolio by maintaining a 14% reduction in energy costs and a 15-20% reduction in maintenance costs. As a diagnostic tool, it helps our maintenance teams be proactive and efficient.

Sprint was recently recognized alongside five other participants in the U.S. Department of Energy's  recently launched Smart Energy Analytics campaign for going the extra mile through their involvement with the program, which seeks to accelerate the adoption of energy management information systems, or EMIS, to uncover energy savings opportunities. The company, in partnership with CBRE Group Inc., has demonstrated a best practice in EMIS by inventing fault detection diagnostics software that is yielding energy savings of about $430,000 from a 2014 baseline, according to Kathleen Hogan, deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency at the DOE. 

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