Berkeley Castle is a commercial and retail building in Toronto’s east end. Built in 1868, the heritage building has undergone multiple renovations to modernize over the years. According to Linda Leistner, Property Manager of Berkeley Castle Investments, the age of the building presents a few challenges when it comes to keeping energy costs down while keeping tenants comfortable. While some organizations opt to jump into equipment upgrades, a better approach might be to start an entirely different journey by improving operating habits and control sequences through a continuous improvement cycle.
With limited time, budget and experience to focus on energy management, Leistner enlisted the expertise of Scott Rouse, Managing Partner at Energy@Work, to help identify new opportunities to save.
Early results are promising – in just nine months, Berkeley Castle has seen a 9% reduction in energy use through non-capital changes alone and even greater savings are expected in the coming months. Leistner and Rouse are now more proactive and strategic about energy management, meeting monthly to review data and working with Toronto Hydro to plan projects ahead that will save energy without compromising the comfort of tenants. “OPsaver pays for us to look comprehensively at our whole building and how systems work together,” Leistner says. “We’re now gaining a lot of momentum with our savings.”
A summary of the case study is available here ->
