PHILLIPS ACADEMY

Wilkinson teaches Phillips Academy how to save!

How it was done:

Picturesque Phillips Academy Andover delivers a top-rated secondary education to more than 1,000 students on a campus of more than 170 buildings and 1.8 million square feet of heating space.

The private, residential school, founded in 1778, boasts such notable alums as Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Rhode Island Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy.

Despite its stature, though, Phillips Academy is not unique in its desire to achieve energy efficiency and savings within tight budgets.

Although the campus’ central heating plant is comprised of three relatively new boilers (each less than five years old), the school still sought to improve overall plant performance, decrease energy costs, and ensure repeatability and reliability.

The combination of engineering expertise at George T. Wilkinson, Inc. and local utilities’ demand side management (DSM) or energy efficiency programs proved essential in achieving the school’s goals.

Wilkinson spearheaded the project by providing Phillips Academy with utility contacts and providing estimated savings based on previous project experience. If not for the incentives, the project would not have been as feasible.

Completed over two seasons, the upgrade delivers annual energy savings, plus added reliability, reduced maintenance costs and reduced staff overtime associated with maintenance of older technology.

Best of all, just over half of the $210,468 total cost of the project was funded by utility incentives. Bay State Gas Co. provided $92,650 over a two-year period, while Massachusetts Electric contributed $15,268. Businesses and organizations with older heating plants typically enjoy savings as great as 12 percent or more, depending on fuel usage, hours of operation and other factors. As for Phillips Academy, the school can expect to enjoy complete payback of its investment within three years.

The project involved fitting the three existing 1,000 horsepower Johnston firetube boilers with modern controls and installation of variable speed drives (VSD) on the 75 horsepower forced draft fans. The selected control for each unit was the Autoflame^® Mk. 6 (a micromodulation system controlling air-to-fuel ratios and boiler temperatures and pressures) with exhaust gas analysis (enabling monitoring and minute corrections to the air damper position) and data transfer interface (allowing monitoring and control of the boiler house on a PC).

The Autoflame units resolved a multitude of problems with the older technology – namely jack shafts, linkages, modulating motors and non-linear performance.

“Phillips’ retrofit was eligible for incentives because the plan generated enough energy savings thanks to the high-tech controls,” explains Bay State Gas Co. DSM Manager Derek Buchler. Bay State Gas has had its energy efficiency programs in place since 1993 and Buchler has been instrumental in implementing them for the past six years.

Call 1-800-777-1629 to speak with a Wilkinson representative.