Project Summary
Located near Millennium Park, Michigan Plaza is a Class A, two-building office complex in downtown Chicago. The two buildings (205 and 225 North Michigan Avenue) have participated frequently in the various ComEd® Energy Efficiency Program offerings over the years, most recently completing a two-year-long MBCx project.
Mark Szewczyk, Operations Manager at Michigan Plaza, first learned about MBCx through trade publications and seminars. Having successfully completed Retro-Commissioning (RCx) projects in each office tower with a ComEd-approved RCx Service Provider, Szewczyk was intrigued by the MBCx concept and made the decision to participate.
Monitoring-based commissioning software helped Michigan Plaza identify energy-saving control and programming modifications for major systems within the buildings. These modifications helped Michigan Plaza save on their energy bills, reduced maintenance needs, extended equipment life, and improved occupant comfort and productivity.
The involvement of building staff, as well as effective collaboration with the MBCx Service Provider and ComEd, was critical to the success of the project. Szewczyk was pleased, stating, “We plan to employ similar team strategies in the near future with other projects and hope for similar results.”
Over the two year period of the study, the Service Provider analyzed various energy conservation measures and recommended easy to implement solutions to Michigan Plaza based on the findings. Implementation was relatively painless and most of the control and programming modifications to the various systems were able to be performed by in-house engineering staff or existing controls contractor.
The primary improvements were replacing the electric baseboard (BB) heater control relays at 225 N. Michigan and modifying the baseboard heat schedule for both 205 and 225 N. Michigan. This accomplished a total of 1,408,162 in kWh savings per year, which resulted in in $107,508 in electrical cost savings per year.
“The ComEd Energy Efficiency Program exceeded our original goals and expectations.”
