Contract Wins: McKinstry Retrofits AFL-CIO Headquarters, Trane Upgrades Country Financial Offices

McKinstry is managing an extensive energy-efficiency retrofit of the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, DC, that will replace and upgrade the existing windows, deploy a new lighting system, and allow the AFL-CIO to operate the building 20 percent more efficiently, saving more than $125,000 per year in utilities. The AFL-CIO and former President Bill Clinton (pictured with McKinstry exec Tom Bowen) kicked off the retrofit as part of the organization’s Commitment to Action announced at the Clinton Global Initiative in June 2011. As part of this commitment and through a partnership with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the AFL-CIO committed $4.8 million in financing to retrofit its own headquarters.

In addition to the upgrades, McKinstry will provide an energy dashboard that will serve to educate visitors to the AFL-CIO headquarters about the utility savings from the upgrades as well as the impact of the project on union jobs and general information about the environmental impact of the project.

Country Financial hired Trane to perform upgrades to its five-story St. Paul, Minn., offices. The financial services firm is phasing in the upgrades and expects the projects completed so far to save the company more than 8 percent in annual energy costs. The multi-tenant building, which houses more than 500 occupants, includes office spaces, a cafeteria, an exercise room and a 24/7 data center. Specific improvements included:

• Implementing Trane Intelligent Services to continuously collect, interpret and act on data from building equipment and controls to optimize the performance of the building. The services program includes alarm notification and active monitoring.
• Installing a new web-based Trane Tracer building automation system, which allows the facility team to manage the facility, track energy use, and to access real-time reporting at a central location.
• Installing an updated control solution on the chiller to more precisely monitor temperature control. The controller also provides data access for faster issues analysis and resolution.
• Adding variable speed drives on pump motors for optimized energy efficiency.
• Implementing instrumentation in the data center to ensure constant uptime and computing ?availability.

Launched in September 2010, the improvements have also delivered expected operational efficiencies, reducing the number of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) service calls by 25 percent.