LOBOS

Providing Utility Solutions

By Erica Rascón on Sep 15, 2014 in News

In efforts to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions, commercial real estate leaders are turning to sustainable building and management techniques. While there are countless products and services on the market to improve efficiency in these areas, few offer an unobtrusive option that is designed to interface seamlessly with existing  HVAC control systems in most modern buildings–LOBOS is different. Whether it is a newly constructed building or a recent renovation, even the greenest buildings can achieve greater energy and cost savings with LOBOS.

Yardi subsidiary Enerliance produces the Load Based Optimization System (LOBOS), an advanced software platform that layers on top of existing HVAC control systems to dramatically reduce energy consumption in large buildings and campuses. The system provides automated energy efficiency reset control strategies, real-time automated demand response functionality (“Smart Grid”), system fault detection and diagnostics, and continuous commissioning.  By adding LOBOS to the Yardi Energy solutions bundle of offerings, our customers can enjoy the maximum gains in energy efficiency and savings possible today.

Scot Duncan, Enerliance founder, commends the relationship between software and utilities, “LOBOS is delivering owner-friendly, tenant-friendly demand reduction which benefits the community, owners and occupants alike. This is a great example of the facilities community working with the utility to prevent brownouts and blackouts, reduce the need to build new power plants, and to manage energy costs for the facility,” says Duncan.

LOBOS is a comfort based system. That is, it monitors and controls cooling, heating and air handling systems to improve occupant comfort while simultaneously reducing utility costs for building owners and tenants. To date, LOBOS has been installed in over 400 buildings and has delivered more than $7 million in annual energy savings to clients, or nearly 143 million kWh. The results have garnered an honored position for Enerliance as one of CIO magazine’s top 20 most promising utility solutions providers.

LOBOS sounds impressive on paper but it is even more impressive in action by improving the efficiency of some of the nation’s greenest buildings in one of the most regulated states.  Constellation Place in Century City, California became a certified green building, earning LEED Gold certification. Constellation Place recently took the next step by installing the LOBOS Energy Efficiency solution. LOBOS will save the 800,000-square-foot building an additional 1.1 million kWh per year. This translates to an average daytime HVAC energy reduction of 30-50 percent.

“From a financial standpoint, LOBOS is just good business,” says Enerliance Business Development Director CP Pitones. “By adding LOBOS HVAC intelligence to an already efficient HVAC system, Constellation Place is now even further ahead of the typical Los Angeles high-rise.”

In Costa Mesa, California, the LEED Gold certified towers at South Coast Plaza have also installed LOBOS technology. The LOBOS Automated Demand Response system enables the 1.5 million square-foot campus to deliver 1 megawatt of peak electric load reduction off of the Southern California Edison Power Grid during its test phase. Within the year, the South Coast Plaza office towers will reduce an additional 1,000 kilowatt-load off of the Grid during peak load reduction events, helping the power company to avoid brownouts or damage to the Grid.

Enerliance is on an aggressive expansion program in response to overwhelming customer demand since its launch of the latest release of LOBOS. Five new strategically located offices are planned in the coming months.  The Manhattan Office has already officially opened with the addition of dedicated Enerliance energy efficiency experts to its staff. The customer response has been extremely enthusiastic.

For more details, visit enerliance.com.