Cypress Envirosystems, a subsidiary of Cypress Semiconductor, said that the California Smart Grid Center (CSGC) has completed the demonstration testing of Cypress Envirosystems’ Wireless Pneumatic Thermostat (WPT) solution.
Cypress added the test confirmed the WPT’s significant reduction in cost, time and disruption to retrofit legacy buildings and thereby enabling them for Smart Grid Auto-Demand Response connectivity.
The company claims that the patent-pending hybrid pneumatic and digital technology used by the WPT opens up the potential for many legacy buildings to participate in peak load reduction and energy efficiency strategies.
The California Energy Commission has funded the CSGC, which is the proving ground for Smart Grid technologies in California.
The CSGC selected approximately 6,000 sqft of office space at Sacramento State University for the demonstration test, for which the CSGC used the Wireless Pneumatic Thermostat system, which costs approximately 80% less than conventional technology and took only two hours for installation.
Following the installation, the thermostats enabled remote control and monitoring of zone setpoint, temperature, and branch pressure for heating or cooling demand via an operator station.
The system features a built-in interface compliant with the OpenADR protocol developed by the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory for communication with utilities for Auto-Demand Response. The system can also interface with existing automation systems using BACnet.
Emir Jose Macari, dean of the College of Engineering and founding director of the CSGC at Sacramento State, said: “The Cypress Envirosystems’ WPT system was installed in record time and has performed flawlessly for the three months of the demonstration test. I am impressed with the system’s performance but above all because of the non-invasive nature of the devices and the installation.”
The company claimed that similar large-scale retrofits using the WPT, involving over one-million sq-ft, have confirmed each WPT can shed up to 1kW of peak load, and reduce 15-30% of HVAC energy use.
Harry Sim, CEO of Cypress Envirosystems, said: “Most commercial buildings built before 1995 use pneumatic control systems. This equates to about 70% of the existing commercial building space, or over 60 billion sq-ft, which cannot be easily connected to the Smart Grid. We designed the WPT specifically to address this problem and also to deliver energy savings.”
Cypress Envirosystems’ WPT aims to save energy and improve productivity in older plants and buildings, using non-invasive and wireless technologies to minimize disruption and cost, delivering payback of 18 months or less.
Cypress, which caters to various markets including consumer, mobile handsets, computation, data communications, automotive, industrial and military, offers USB controllers including the high-performance West Bridge solution, and high-performance memories and programmable timing devices.