Alpha Controls & Services provided the highest energy savings for public facility customers in Northern Illinois
ROCKFORD, Ill (PRWEB) September 04, 2014
The state of Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) officially recognized Alpha Controls & Services as a leader in implementing energy saving projects for public facilities in Northern Illinois. Alpha Controls is a Trade Ally partner in the Illinois Energy Now Program, an energy efficiency program that provides millions of dollars in rebates to public facilities that make energy efficiency improvements to their electric and natural gas systems. For the 2014 program year, Alpha ranked third in the state and provided the highest energy savings for public facility customers in Northern Illinois.
Based in Rockford with offices in Champaign and Springfield, Alpha Controls is a member of the InsideIQ Building Automation Alliance, an international alliance of leading independent building automation contractors who share industry best practices in energy management to enable customers to maximize the efficiency of their systems and facilities. DCEO Trade Allies like Alpha are contractors who are experts in providing customized energy efficient solutions to clients in the public sector. Based on their understanding of the rules, regulations, and application process of the DCEO programs they help clients to navigate the system and receive the maximum amount of incentives. During the 2014 program year, Alpha assisted customers to earn more than $700,000 in grants for energy efficiency projects encompassing over 2.5 million square feet of space.
According to Jason Vogelbaugh, Alpha Controls & Services director of energy solutions, the company has a five step process to enable customers to improve the energy efficiency of their facilities:
- Benchmarking: Alpha applies the Energy Star Portfolio Manger to establish the energy efficiency of the facility
- Preliminary Analysis: Alpha examines how the customer uses energy
- Comprehensive Analysis: Alpha uses detailed energy modeling to determine specific energy conservation measures (ECMs) to apply to the facility
- Execute Plan: Alpha applies the recommended ECMs to the facility
- Measure & Verify: Alpha compares actual energy use to the model and makes adjustments as necessary to ensure the energy efficiency achieved matches the initial plan
“Using this model, Alpha has improved the energy efficiency of a variety of public facilities and delivered significant savings in utility and operating costs,” said Vogelbaugh. “Many of these projects have resulted in the facility achieving Energy Star designation, which means the building performs in the top 25 percent of similar buildings. For example, our customer McHenry County has received the Energy Star for one of its buildings and two other facilities are qualified to apply for the designation.”
A program of the Environmental Protection Agency, Energy Star is a voluntary partnership between businesses, government and others united to protect the environment by adopting energy‐efficient practices. “Energy Star offers benchmarking data on thousands of buildings of all types and sizes, making it an excellent source of authoritative, relevant and current data to measure and compare energy use in a facility and establish efficiency goals,” said Vogelbaugh.
“Alpha Controls & Services is a leading provider of successful energy efficiency projects in Illinois and representative of the value that customers receive working with a member of the InsideIQ Building Automation Alliance,” said Paul Strohm, vice president of InsideIQ. “Customers benefit from Alpha’s local expertise combined with knowledge of industry best practices that Alpha has gained as a member of InsideIQ, where sharing of information allows member firms access to a large pool of knowledge.”
Alpha Controls & Services not only assists customers to achieve energy efficiency, the company has Energy Star rated facilities in Rockford and Springfield, Ill. and Alpha is both an Energy Star Partner and a member of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), sponsors of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) sustainable buildings program.
About InsideIQ
InsideIQ Building Automation Alliance is an organization comprised of independent commercial building and facility automation companies representing common automation and security system platforms. Our member firms across North America, Europe and Australia share best practices among more than 5,200 employees at over 110 locations. Members specialize in the design and implementation of facilities and process control systems, systems integration, enterprise security systems, facilities maintenance services, energy services, and the representation of other value-added products and services. The largest independent organization of its kind, InsideIQ member companies provide consistent applications, coordination, and support for commercial facility owners. More information is available online at http://www.insideiq.org.