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Projects and Case Studies

The demands placed on today's facilities have never been greater. Modern buildings must be flexible and reach new levels of energy efficiency. They require attentive cost-control practices in all stages of initial construction and modernization, as well as in daily operation. Those charged with building construction and management must rely on technologies and the people behind them to meet their facility-related responsibilities. For 40 years, KMC Controls has been designing, building, and, through our distribution partners, delivering innovative control solutions. We are committed to being the provider of choice for HVAC controls and building automation.

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Commercial Office

Kuwait Oil Company Headquarters
(Al Ahmadi, Kuwait) – Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), a subsidiary of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, is universally recognized as one of the world’s top oil energy producing enterpris...
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Wachovia Bank Building
(Tampa, Florida) - The 22-story, 387,000 sq. ft. high rise at 100 South Ashley Drive is known as one of the friendliest and most e...
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Intel - IDC 9
(Haifa, Israel) – Computer hardware giant, Intel Corporation, has received LEED® Gold certification, the internationally recognized stamp of approval from the U.S. Gre...
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100 North Tampa Building
(Tampa, Florida) – Located downtown, the 100 North Tampa building is a prominent piece of architecture in the city’s skyline. It is the tallest building in Tampa wit...
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Forsyth Center
(St. Louis, Missouri) - In the St. Louis suburb of Clayton, MDR Properties has added a second 14-story class A office complex imme...
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SouthTrust Plaza
(Tampa, Florida) – With the exception of some geographic variability, commercial office space remains amply available to the buying/leasing community. As a result, many ow...
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Energen Headquarters
(Birmingham, Alabama) - Located in the foot-hills of the Appalachian Mountains, Birmingham, Alabama is home to over 240,000 residents w...
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Nationwide Insurance Company
(Gainesville, Florida) – What does an insurance provider do to insure the continued comfort of their own staff? For Nationwide, one of the largest insurance and financial ...
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LEED & ENERGY STAR

Greenway Middle School
(Phoenix, Arizona) - Greenway Middle School has a proud history dating back to 1912. What began as a one room schoolhouse in northeast Phoenix has evolved int...
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Intel - IDC 9

(Haifa, Israel) – Computer hardware giant, Intel Corporation, has received LEED® Gold certification, the internationally recognized stamp of approval from the U.S...

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Goshen College, Rieth Village
(Goshen, Indiana) - When Luke Gascho, Goshen College’s Merry Lea Building Executive Director, interviewed contractors and architects for a new collegiat...
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Wachovia Bank Building
(Tampa, Florida) - The 22-story, 387,000 sq. ft. high rise at 100 South Ashley Drive is known as one of the friendliest and most easily...
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Schools (K-12)

Franklin School District
(Franklin, Massachusetts) - The city of Franklin is located in Norfolk County, one of the original four counties of the Colony of Massa...
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Nantucket Public Schools
(Nantucket, Massachusetts) Nantucket, a place of charm and beauty, is located thirty miles from the mainland of Massachusetts on...
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Greenway Middle School
(Phoenix, Arizona) - Greenway Middle School has a proud history dating back to 1912. What began as a one room schoolhouse in northeast Phoenix has evolved int...
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Clay Community Schools
(Clay County, Indiana) - The rural county is located in west-central Indiana approximately 15 miles east of Terra Haute. The small...
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Colleges/Universities

TDK's Headway Technologies

(Milpitas, CA) - Continuous Improvement.  When there's a great deal of low-hanging fruit to gather, it's an easy concept to...

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University of Guelph
(Guelph, Canada) - With approximately 16,000 undergraduate and graduate students, the University of Guelph (U of G) is a leading educat...
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Goshen College, Rieth Village
(Goshen, Indiana) When Luke Gascho, Goshen College’s Merry Lea Building Executive Director, interviewed contractors and architects for a new coll...
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Saint John's University
(Collegeville, Minnesota) Saint John’s University is an all men’s school of approximately 1,900 students. The Univer...
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Retail

Brandon Town Center
(Brandon, Florida) – Setting on a beautifully landscaped 262-acre lot just 8 miles east of downtown Tampa, Florida lies the Brandon Town Center mall. This 1.2 million squa...
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Hospitality

The Westin Michigan Avenue Chicago
(Chicago, Illinois) - A landmark on Chicago’s famed “Magnificent Mile” the Westin Michigan Avenue is rich in history ...
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Essenhaus
(Middlebury, Indiana) - Located in the center of a predominant Amish community, the Essenhaus attracts many visitors every year. The fa...
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TPC at Deere Run
(Silvis, Illinois) – The annual John Deere Classic golf tournament is held at TPC at Deere Run in this Illinois town near the Davenport, Iowa border. According to D.A. Wei...
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Government/Public

Royal Saudi Naval Force
(Riyadh, KSA) – In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the Royal Saudi Naval Force (RSNF) is the naval branch of the armed forces. Founded in 1960, the RSNF was developed largely as a defensive f...
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Kuwait Oil Company Headquarters
(Al Ahmadi, Kuwait) – Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), a subsidiary of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, is universally recognized as one of the world’s top oil energy producing enterpris...
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Indiana State Museum
(Indianapolis, Indiana) – Located in White River State Park in the heart of Indiana’s capital city, the Indiana State Museum is a world-class institution where India...
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Government Palace
(Brasilia, Brazil) – The Brazilian government’s recently completed headquarters required the newest technology and control systems. ISAI Controles of San Pablo, Braz...
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Glenmont House
(West Orange, New Jersey) - Llewellyn Park, located in West Orange, New Jersey, was the first planned residential community in the United States. Developed in...
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Federal Police Building
(San Pablo, Brazil)  Brazilian-based Federal Police now have a new building with plenty of offices and jail space. The...
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Jefferson City Correctional Center
(Jefferson City, Missouri) - The new Jefferson City Correctional Center is now open for inmate occupancy. The facility is capable of ho...
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Department of Defense Computer Facility
(Ogden, Utah) – The Defense Department’s Enterprise Computing Center (DECC) is a facility with complex environmental control system requirements. When it came time t...
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Industrial

Seattle Life Sciences Building
(Seattle, Washington) – Seattle is home to numerous firms in the life sciences arena.  The buildings that house them are often described as mixed use with office, laboratory, and research s...
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OPTODEV Inc.
(Manila, Philippines) – Since 1998, OPTODEV, Inc., a subsidiary of Essilor International, one of the leading global players in health care, has been a producer of high-index ophthalmic lens...
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Midwest Laboratories
(Omaha, Nebraska) - Founded in 1975, Midwest Laboratories analyzes the components of many different items—from soil, to plant tis...
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Molex
(Lincoln, Nebraska) - One of the fastest growing companies, Molex, stands as number two in the electronics molded connectors industry. ...
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Healthcare

OPTODEV Inc.
(Manila, Philippines) – Since 1998, OPTODEV, Inc., a subsidiary of Essilor International, one of the leading global players in health care, has been a producer of high-index ophthalmic lens...
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Bellin Health System
(Green Bay, Wisconsin) – Bellin Health System is an integrated healthcare delivery system based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, serving 450,000 people in northeastern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula ...
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HEALTHSOUTH Lakeshore Rehabilitation Hospital
(Birmingham, Alabama) - HEALTHSOUTH Lakeshore Rehabilitation Hospital is a top-tier healthcare facility serving north central and centr...
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St Edwards Mercy Medical Center
(Ft. Smith, Arkansas) – Product reliability and customer service are important, but not always common currency among products and companies. When St. Edwards Mercy Medical...
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Pinellas County's Forensic and Medical Examiners Center
(Largo, Florida) – In recent times forensic science has garnered quite a following in the popular culture scene. Though the associated control system may never be featured...
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Seattle Life Sciences Building
(Seattle, Washington) – Seattle is home to numerous firms in the life sciences arena.  The buildings that house them are often described as mixed use with office, laboratory, and research space. Unlike many such facilities throughout the metropolitan area, however, the Seattle Life Sciences Building at 1124 Columbia Street is located in the heart of the city.  It’s within a short distance of major medical centers, Seattle University, and many other downtown attractions.  

Built in 1976, this 7-story facility (192,290 sq. ft.) is home to medical practitioners as well as research and biotech firms with names like Cellnetix Pathology, Theraclone Sciences, the Infectious Disease Research Institute, Dharma Therapeutics, the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, and more.  The facility is owned by Alexandria Real Estate Equities (ARE), the international leader of, and largest owner of, real estate in the life sciences industry. 

The building’s mechanical systems have been served by a proprietary control system for many years.  In more recent years, ARE representatives have desired a more open approach.  As a result, a BACnet automation system from Alerton has been in place for a portion of the building.  Still more recently, however, building needs have grown beyond that for which the automation system was intended. 

That’s when the challenge fell to Steve Depew and Roger Norman.  Steve is a consulting/design engineer with Engineered Building Controls of Burien, Washington and Roger is owner of Northwest Automation of Tonasket, Washington.  Roger’s company, a building automation and energy management system contractor, is also an authorized representative of another BACnet manufacturer, KMC Controls.   

The challenge?  Create a heat recovery system using heat reclaimed from exhaust fans and waste steam condensate.   

Interestingly, a privately held utility, Seattle Steam (www.seattlesteam.com), delivers reliable heat to over 200 downtown buildings in the form of steam.  One of Seattle Steam’s customers is the Seattle Life Sciences Center.  While the utility has taken admirable steps toward sustainable generation of this steam, there remains tremendous waste following its use by various Seattle Steam customers.  (All of the steam produced is used on a “once through” basis; no condensate is returned to the steam plant.)   

The Life Sciences Building uses the steam for several processes including AHU heating, CAV and VAV reheat, humidification, and autoclaves (for sterilizing medical equipment and supplies).  Once used, however, the condensate from the steam’s use was collected and dumped down the drain.  Further, the hot condensate was tempered by domestic water to protect the city sewage system from being overheated and to protect the glass drains throughout the building from breaking.   

This was certainly not a sustainable approach favored by ARE, its tenants, nor the City of Seattle in general. 

Steve, Roger, and their respective teams designed and installed a system that captures all of the hot condensate throughout the building.  This hot condensate is then pumped to storage tanks in the mechanical room.   

In addition to the reclaimed heat from exhaust fans, a plate-and-frame heat exchanger is also used to extract heat from the stored condensate.  In turn, the condensate is put down the drain at acceptable temperatures.  Captured, heated water is used to preheat the 100% outside air at the AHU intake, thus dramatically reducing the need for steam heat.  During warmer weather, the heated loop water is diverted to exhaust fan coils for heat rejection to the outside air. 

Not satisfied with only addressing energy efficiency and heat recovery, Steve also saw an opportunity to protect the existing steam coils from freezing and used the heat recovery system to provide freeze protection.  This meant no more cracked steam coil headers flooding the lower floors and no more 3:00 a.m. AHU freeze protection shutdowns requiring emergency calls to the facility engineers! 

Of course, such a creative approach requires precise control.  The entire heat recovery system and 4 Air Handling Units (previously under proprietary control) are controlled by the BAC-A1616BC BACnet Building Controller (B-BC) from KMC Controls.  Its capabilities are further extended through the use of 4 KMC B-BC expansion modules.  Various KMC valves and sensors complete the control sub-system functionality.   

The powerful KMC building controller serves up its own web pages.  These pages are integrated nicely into the operator workstation of the existing Alerton BACtalk control system.  Thus, the newer control functions become a seamless part of the overall building automation scheme.   

Owners anticipate a 3-year payback for the heat recovery system through measures such as the following:

·       reduced steam demand

·       elimination of water used for tempering condensate before dispelling

·       reduced sewage charges due to lower volume of water dispelled


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