CASE STUDY
COLLIER COUNTY GOVERNMENT
Location: Naples, FL
The Client
The Collier County Government Administration Center in Naples, Fla. is the central location for providing services to the roughly 385,000 residents of Collier County. The County Courthouse, Tax Collectors Office, County Manager, County Clerk, Sheriff’s Office, Corrections (jail), Procurement, and the County Commissioners’ offices are all located on this campus.
The Challenge
The county complex was initially built in the 1960’s and has evolved continuously over the last sixty years. Senior facility management personnel recognized that the site’s aging infrastructure and equipment needed to be assessed due to existing performance issues and for future expansion. Many of the buildings on the campus are fed by a chilled water distribution loop from a central chiller plant with an ice storage facility that was under functioning. This was costing the County in increasing energy costs and equipment downtime. The County leadership realized they needed to partner with a company that had the expertise to complete an assessment of all equipment and systems and to evaluate opportunities to reduce energy costs while improving the overall sustainability of campus.
The Solution
To help the Collier County facility team prioritize what energy conservation measures needed to be done, Plug Smart surveyed the 14 major buildings on their main campus, representing over 800,000 square feet of multi-level building space. All relevant site data was collected to create a comprehensive Energy Master Plan (EMP). A renewable energy assessment was also provided with recommendations on upgrading their main chiller plant, replacing aged lighting with LEDs, installing measurement systems to monitor energy consumption, updating their control systems, and completing advanced retrocommissioning. As Collier County moves forward with implementing the upgrades, the facilities will become more sustainable and will allow the management team to have more accurate control and visibility of the operational systems involved.