A building may contain a vast array of efficiency measures, or it may be old and inefficient. Either way, the electricity used in the building will likely be produced with inherent inefficiencies. The efficiency of fossil fuel based electricity production averages 34% (although new combined cycle plants can exceed 50% efficiency). The ultimate efficiency of any building pulling electricity from the grid is limited by that number.

Centrifugal pumps perform many important functions to control the built environment. The physics and basic mechanics of pumps have not changed substantially in the last century.

To truly minimize the energy use of a drivepower system-which includes the motor, its controls, and the connection between the motor and the equipment it drives-designers need to consider how these components operate as a system rather than looking at them on an individual basis.

Process heating is a significant source of energy consumption in the industrial and manufacturing sectors, and it often results in a large amount of waste heat that is discharged into the atmosphere.

This brief explores techniques for identifying and solving pump system problems commonly encountered in existing buildings during retro-commissioning processes.

Demand response (DR) refers to a mechanism that encourages customers to reduce or shift their electric power usages under certain conditions to help utilities to overcome temporary constraints in the electricity supply.

In 2005, the Dublin San Ramon Services District (DSRSD) redesigned their plant to increase its capacity and better serve the residents of Dublin and San Ramon. The plant's engineers worked with PG&E staff under the auspices of a statewide investor-owned utility sponsored energy efficiency program, Savings By Design (SBD), to analyze the plant's energy consumption patterns and design it as efficiently as possible.

An average building may contain hundreds of motors, whirring and chugging away unseen. Most of them are used in heating, ventilating, and air conditioning applications as drivers for fans, pumps, and air conditioning compressors.