For one large school district in Florida, the reality of unnecessary energy costs was enough to warrant a change. To meet indoor air quality (IAQ) standards, the district had to constantly monitor their 280 portable classroom units, each with their own thermostat, to maintain relative humidity and temperature for its 62,000 students and 7,400 employees. With no remote access to any readings in these traditional programmable thermostat units, HVAC system run time often exceeded what was needed, costing the district time and money.
The Sensi Manager software proved to be the most crucial benefit for the school district. "It's given us a level of customer satisfaction that we’re able to provide now and couldn’t before.” The mobile app, specifically, first attracted the team to Sensi, providing a way for them to service the entire district whenever it was needed from any location. “You can’t put a price on that,” says David, the District Energy Manager. Now, they can change multiple schedules from anywhere, saving the district more than $2,500 a weekend during certain times of the year.
One of the Florida school district’s Energy Managers began looking for a reliable, flexible solution that would provide full access control. He and his team evaluated several options before choosing Sensi™ thermostats for their reasonable price and their willingness to tweak their software and accommodate specific needs.
The school district installed 280 Sensi smart thermostats—one in each of their portable classrooms, and enabled the Sensi Multiple Thermostat Manager software solution to remotely monitor the units. “I was personally a part of the first few installs. When I did the first few with my technicians, I was astounded by how easy it was,” the Energy Manager said.
"Of all the projects I've been involved with, the Sensi project has proven to be the most cost-effective. We originally estimated a return on investment of six to eight months. After implementing the project, we found it’s actually closer to 4.4 months,” David said. “The savings were so much greater than we projected. When my superiors and the board saw those results after our initial installations, it was, 'How fast can we get this going?' Here we are, 600 thermostats lager, I can reasonably suggest to you that we'll save a quarter of a million dollars a year if this trend continues," he adds.
Based on their initial success and quick ROI, the school district plans to expand its use of Sensi thermostats, incorporating Sensi Multiple Thermostat Manager into 10 years of building projects.
