Optimizing Consumption, Comfort, & Cost
At Bright Power, our approach to energy and water efficiency means looking at the issues in a building holistically and implementing improvements that address the root causes of problems, not simply putting band-aids on their visible symptoms. Our design and implementation team provides turnkey installation services, spanning from the initial feasibility assessment to contractor selection and construction management.
A typical efficiency upgrade project with Bright Power will include a myriad of measures—lighting, heating and cooling systems, building envelope, controls, water fixtures, and water heating. They are carefully selected based upon the conditions at your building and available incentive programs, to provide a meaningful impact for your operating staff, your tenants, and your utility bills.
After projects are completed, our EnergyScoreCards platform allows you to measure and verify success and returns. For real-time energy management, Bright Power’s MoBIUS® utilizes sensors and continuous commissioning to diagnose and reduce energy consumption while providing technical support.
Lighting
Lighting consumes 14% of all residential energy usage and simple upgrades can make a big impact on operating costs, as well as tenant comfort and safety.
Bright Power’s lighting solutions include replacing existing bulbs with energy efficient alternatives, installing more efficient lighting systems, and implementing controls, such as occupancy sensors that prevent unnecessary use. Lighting upgrades implemented at the portfolio-level produce significant savings with relatively short payback periods.
Additionally, there are many available incentives for energy efficient lighting programs. Bright Power can help you navigate through the process of applying for and deploying these alternative funding sources.
Heating & Cooling Systems
The causes of heating and cooling problems are varied, from a simple lack of controls to more deep-seated system imbalances. Either way, they can cause owners and managers to experience unnecessarily high utility costs, sometimes with unexpected and unwelcome spikes.
Bright Power employs innovative yet proven technologies like heat pumps to provide premium comfort for tenants while controlling utility costs.
In New York City, many buildings heated by steam often have wide temperature variations—some rooms feel as hot as saunas while, at the same time, others are freezing cold. The usual result, aside from annoyed tenants, is excessive energy spending. Not only is the entire building overheated to improve comfort in the cold areas, but tenants in hot areas routinely open their windows to compensate.
Bright Power’s steam balancing services correct this problem by recalibrating the system to distribute heat properly, normalizing consumption, reducing energy costs, and improving comfort across all areas of the building.
Building Envelope, Facade, & Roof
A building’s envelope—its facade, roof, and windows—can make or break its energy efficiency. The envelope controls the indoor climate while also helping the building resist water leaks. Many of our rehabilitation projects include facade work to ensure all maximize the effectiveness of improvements to building systems.
Controls
Bright Power’s experts often find that buildings consume an excessive amount of energy as a result of poorly controlled and operated systems. More often than not, this is the product of a broken or overridden control that allows a system to heat or cool constantly without regard for the building’s occupancy.
Improving system controls not only allows owners and operators to cut costs that stem from wasted energy, but it also provides remote access to operating schedules and performance data.
Water Fixtures
In the vast majority of buildings, energy- and water-related systems are intricately intertwined and are impossible to effectively manage in silos. Bright Power’s energy audits all include a thorough assessment of the building’s water consumption and waste, an important area to highlight as the price of water continues to rise and governments are increasingly setting related performance standards.
Similar to energy efficiency, Bright Power implements a wide range of solutions that correct the deficiencies causing excessive water usage, from simply installing low-flow fixtures to finding and repairing hidden leaks throughout a building.
Water Heating
Bright Power has vast experience designing and installing technologies like cogeneration and heat pump water heaters.
Cogeneration uses natural gas to provide onsite power to both electrical and domestic hot water systems. It captures waste heat created during the generation process and preheats domestic hot water, making the building more efficient and saving money.
Heat pump water heaters open up the possibility of completely electrifying your property. And, when you combine heat pump water heaters with solar PV and battery storage, you move closer to zero emissions. While this technology has been proven to reduce costs and increase energy efficiency, very few can install these properly. Bright Power is the leader in installing heat pump water heaters correctly.