It’s a muggy afternoon in Fairmont and a team from West Virginia University’s Industrial Assessment Center is making its way around All Pro Home Improvements at a casual but business-like pace.
Using a yellow device that looks like a personal fan, Dr. Bhaskaran Gopalakrishnan stretches to get as close as possible to the ceiling of an office to measure air flow through the metal framework that connects the tiles.
A few feet away, Dayakar Devaru, a doctoral industrial engineering student, and Phani Guthula, a master’s industrial engineering student, are huddled around a laptop discussing data that other instruments have revealed about the light levels from bulbs and types of ballasts in the building’s light fixtures.
Meanwhile, Dr. Ed Crowe, an engineering scientist, is recording thermal images with a digital camera. The images will reveal where and how much heat is leaking out of doors and windows or, on a summer day like today, how much cool air from air conditioning is escaping.
The team also inspects the building’s HVAC system, its hot water heater and reviews a sampling of All Pro’s monthly energy consumption via bills. The findings will be compiled in a report that may result for considerable savings for the business owner.
It’s the second audit the team has done in Marion County today as it keeps pace with two U.S. Department of Agriculture grants that require 125 assessments per year over the next two years.
Click below to hear Ed Crowe talk about the job opportunities in the field of WVU industrial engineering and how the IAC experience benefits WVU grad students.
To date, the Center has performed assessments for 70 small businesses, saving each around 10-20 percent off its energy bills, according to Gopalakrishnan.
Making businesses more efficient has been the Center’s mission since the early 1990s. The small rural business and farm initiative began in 2009 as an Industries of the Future-West Virginia project with a grant from the WV Division of Energy.
Partnering with the WVU Extension Service, the Center first assessed a poultry farm in the Eastern Panhandle. The program quickly expanded to include small businesses and offer opportunities to more West Virginians.
The small business initiative filled a gap in the Center’s services, Gopalakrishnan said.
Click below to hear Dr. Bhaskaran Gopalakrishnan discuss the benefits of small business energy assessments to business owners and communities.
“We had already been doing industrial work for years – people who consume hundreds of thousands of dollars in energy annually,” he said. “But we were not servicing the small guy. We wanted to be able to go to the bakers, the florists, the small shops.”
Meeting its annual quota won’t be a problem, says Gopalakrishnan, a professor of industrial and management systems engineering, who has been performing assessments for the past two decades. Especially because Jessica Ross, a WVU College of Business and Economics marketing major has been brought on board to help identify, schedule and track assessment requests. The Center has also hired a subcontractor to help with the workflow when WVU representatives have a scheduling conflict.
But Gopalakrishnan, has a bigger goal than merely meeting the grant requirements. He wants the service to stop being one of the state’s best-kept secrets.
“I wish more people knew about this,” he said. “In lighting alone, businesses could save money. Even though their bills may be small and they may be thinking, ‘I’m not spending a whole lot,’ still, saving 10, 20 percent for a whole year is a good amount for a small business trying to make it.”
Click below to hear Crowe talk about the mission of the USDA, WV Division of Energy and WVU's Industrial Assessment Center in bringing energy assessments to small businesses.
The Center isn’t flying completely under the small business radar. Through networking with state and community organizations, and help from Morgantown-based USDA representative Rick Satterfield, it has built a solid word-of-mouth reputation. And the USDA grant and further funding and support from the state Division of Energy have created a dynamic resource for the state which still holds plenty of untapped potential.
Businesses located almost anywhere in the state, with the exception of some areas around Charleston, Huntington and the I-64 corridor, are eligible as long as they have fewer than 500 employees, Gopalakrishnan said.
Crowe said many larger businesses have resources available to identify and counter energy loss but small businesses face more of a challenge.
“You run into people that have expertise in their area of business, but they may not have it in the technical aspects,” Crowe said. “They don’t always know what the latest in lighting is, they don’t have an appreciation for air infiltration or the kind of things or areas where they could be losing energy.
“Sometimes out clients will say, ‘Yeah, we suspected that we were sort of inefficient here,’ but they really don’t know the details. So we’re filling in that piece of information for them.”
In addition to the recommendations, the team also shares information about USDA loan programs to help underwrite the initial cost of following the recommendations. They also encourage businesses to talk with their tax accountants to uncover tax credits for energy efficiency investments as additional savings. A typical assessment could cost from $800 to $1,400, but WVU provides the service for free.
An energy assessment was a small but important part of an ambitious plan to revitalize Ronceverte, a tiny town near Lewisburg in Greenbrier County. The plan started with a visit from WVU’s Community Design Team in 2002 and included assessments on four buildings pegged for renovations.
The first building, an old American Legion Hall, had been gutted and did not have windows but Crowe provided recommendations on how best to renovate it to make it as energy efficient as possible, said Doug Hylton, outgoing executive director of the Ronceverte Development Corp.
The other three buildings, privately owned, will house new businesses.
“What we were looking at doing was a historic preservation on these buildings but incorporating the latest energy efficiency recommendations and also use renewable energy wherever possible,” Hylton said.
“Ed and his two assistants put us in the right direction.”
Hylton’s mission is converting Ronceverte into an “eco district,” which will not only beautify and revitalize the town but also lure entrepreneurs who want to be part of a sustainable environment. He said he hopes to have Center representatives return in a few years to rate Ronceverte’s progress.
The Ronceverte initiative mirrors Gopalakrishnan’s vision for the Center. He’s proud of the fact that the assessments not only save businesses money but provide them with an opportunity to be part of community and global sustainability trends.
“Energy savings is tied to emission savings,” Gopalakrishnan said. “It’s always been an integral part of our approach – to save emissions. We understand a lot of these businesses want to be green and want to support the community in being green. I think it’s a win-win situation that way.”
To request an assessment, contact the Center at EnergyAssessment@mail.wvu.edu. For questions about eligibility, visit http://eligibility.sc.egov.usda.gov/.
-WVU-
ds/07/11/11
CONTACT: Bhaskaran Gopalakrishnan, WVU Industrial Assessment Center
304.293.9434; Bhaskaran.Gopalakrishnan@mail.wvu.edu
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