San Diego’s 550 Corporate Center Powers Down Energy Consumption to Achieve Huge Savings with LonWorks® Open Systems.

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Built in the early 1990s—when energy costs were low—the all-electric, 20-story, 343,000 square foot 550 Corporate Center building in San Diego was anything but energy efficient. Phased retrofits to the building’s automation system begun in 1999 to incorporate a LonWorks based system from Echelon have resulted in considerable reduction in electrical consumption and assisted in helping the building to win two consecutive "The Office Building of the Year" (TOBY) awards from the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA).

Currently managed by CB Richard Ellis, one of the largest property management firms in the country, the 550 Corporate Center building was due for a building automation system overhaul in 1999 to meet Y2K compliance. The building’s engineering staff did not want to simply replace the Honeywell Excel system with yet another proprietary system. “The goal was to have a system that was open, flexible, and expandable,” says John Gibson, the chief engineer at 550 Corporate Center. “A system that could truly be managed in-house without having to pay someone to come out and tweak or fine tune it. We believed LonWorks was the future of building automation.”

The Power to Choose
Several proprietary vendors were considered, but in the end, a LonWorks based system was chosen. To plan and install the new system, Control Contractors, Inc. was selected. CCI, headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with six offices including San Diego, has been designing and deploying building automation systems since 1975. The firm has implemented a number of LonWorks based systems, including one at the W Hotel across the street from the 550 Corporate Center building.

LonWorks technology is a non-proprietary architecture that provides an open network to which many systems can be integrated. Selecting a LonWorks based system has allowed the 550 Corporate Center building to pick any LonWorks standards-based products, services, and vendors based on performance, features, and costs without being locked into one vendor. This has been key in getting disparate building systems to work together seamlessly as one to optimize management and energy utilization. It has also allowed Gibson to expand the system in phases to add new capabilities.

To read the complete story visit the Echelon site at
http://www.echelon.com/solutions/building/appstories/550CorpCenter.htm

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