Saving Energy and Improving Comfort at Boeing

Abstract

When the Boeing Company purchased a 20-year-old building to expand its operations in the Houston area, it found itself in a situation that is all too familiar to many organizations—aging mechanical equipment with outdated controls, rising energy bills, comfort issues, and no magic pot of money to fix everything that needed to be fixed. By carefully focusing their efforts on programs with the greatest payback, they were able to cut their energy usage by approximately 24 percent, over 2 million kWh in the first year of their energy initiative. By continuing to fine tune their energy program, they cut energy use by an additional 9 percent in their second year. Equally important, they improved the indoor working environment and comfort while making these changes and saved the equivalent of 2,037 metric tons of carbon dioxide in greenhouse gas emissions over this same period. This facility received an Energy Star certification and has been submitted for LEED EB certification. This article will examine some of the ways in which Boeing achieved these remarkable results. It will also focus on the reporting tools used to measure both energy use and the indoor working environment to insure the energy savings were not achieved at the expense of lost comfort and productivity.