Granfel Power Inc. (GPI), an affiliated representative of Energy Automation Systems Inc. (EASI) has built a growing and continuing business marketing systems of multiple products into commercial and industrial facilities that reduce electrical costs and improve power quality.
Since 1978, EASI has slowly and steadily improved and expanded product lines to provide simple solutions to the high costs and operating concerns of almost any type of electrical load. By carefully deciding which of our products to apply to which individual loads, or small groups of loads within a customer’s facility, and then gauging the likely effect on electricity costs, we can readily implement a cost reduction system into almost any facility and attach a reliable estimate of expected electrical cost savings to be realized.
We are frequently asked to explain in engineering terms the effect each of our individual products has upon the electrical consumption and operations of particular types of electrical equipment. We are challenged regularly to justify the savings estimates we provide to our end users from applying a system of our components. This letter is our complete response to all such inquiries.
What GPI Does
GPI collects data from our field representatives or from end users that describes the many individual electrical loads, the electrical system itself, and the overall operations of a particular business facility. Every individual electrical load attached to the facility’s metered electrical service is detailed sufficiently to determine its contribution to the overall electricity cost, and its interactive effects upon facility power quality.
From this field data we evaluate which of our many treatment products might be applied to each of the included loads, what the cost of the application would be, and what effect the application would have upon the specific contribution to facility electricity costs of that one load. If the result of this decision is that the application of an EASI treatment product would be a cost effective and performance enhancing addition to the electrical system, we then specify that particular application into the overall project.
We have learned that the
effect on overall electrical costs produced by any one EASI product attached to
any individual electrical load is not reliably predictable, despite a large
body of standard formulae for making such calculations. However, we have also
learned that the overall effect of a particular approach, such as harmonic
current reduction through efficient filtering techniques, can be estimated with
good reliability, within the context of an entire facility treatment system.
Because of this realization, and recognizing that customer companies require
reliable data for decision making in these matters, we adopted the firm policy
of only designing and installing
full facility treatment systems. We simply do not expose our customers to the
risks of faulty savings estimates or unreliable predictions of performance.
Such uncertainties exist with individual product applications, but rapidly
diminish when larger numbers of load treatments are implemented within one
facility.
After completely evaluating all the individual loads within a facility for potential cost saving applications of EASI products, we then review the entire project as a whole, to view potential operations effects, such as possible leading power factor conditions during light building load, or possible resonance conditions in high harmonic environments. The overall project is then adjusted to completely eliminate any such possibly adverse conditions, and all final product recommendations and savings estimates are finalized.
GPI then provides our end user with a detailed report of our treatment recommendations and savings estimates for this project.
What GPI Does Not Do
We are adamant about protecting our customers from risk. A decision to implement an EASI system must produce a reliable result in both savings and performance. It is just good business practice for us to impose this restraint upon ourselves; any other method risks producing customer dissatisfaction and could slow our continued growth as a company. Accordingly, we do not deviate from our standard methods and practices, nor do we make any recommendations that do not fully match our experiences and expectations for any of our products or their application.
GPI designs and recommends intelligently selected systems of products into customer facilities; systems composed of many electrical efficiency approaches and technologies. We realize that any one of these many components may produce results significantly above or below those expected from our planning and estimation process. We also realize that, as a complete system, the results from our work will always meet or exceed the estimates we provide to our customers.
We do not adjust or otherwise tamper with the savings estimates we generate in our estimating process, in an effort to make a project more attractive. The estimated savings are carefully considered sums generated from all of the individual load evaluations we make for a project. Since these estimates are the basis upon which our customers decide to implement a GPI project, they must be reliable and conservative.
While our approach and methods are constantly evolving to include better technologies and improved implementation strategies, we do not reach beyond our core abilities, nor stray from our proven business model. Every project we undertake is designed and implemented only within the GPI policies in effect at the time the project is in process.
How Our Technologies Work
By not focusing our efforts upon any one type of electrical load, and instead addressing every substantive electrical load in a facility, we are able to distribute the uncertainties involved in any electrical efficiency treatment project among a large number of different techniques and applications. Companies that focus only upon one type of electrical load, such as motors or lighting, cannot distribute these uncertainties; if their estimated performance on that one type of load falls short of expectations, the entire project fails.
GPI’s approach eliminates the risks of project savings shortfalls. We know from the start of a project that some of our individual treatments will produce substantially less savings than we anticipate, and that some of the treatments will produce much higher savings than we anticipate. By simply accepting the fact that these individual load treatments are incalculable, and budgeting to a total system savings that is designed for conservatism, we are able to provide our customers with consistently reliable savings on all of our projects. This is why our trade association has been able to insure the savings we estimate for all of our projects, and why there has never been a single claim filed against this insurance program.
Because of our facility wide averaging of anticipated savings, and because our experience has proven that individual load treatments are, at best, simply guesses at the most likely savings, we have adopted methods for calculating the savings to be realized from a project. We know from our experience that reducing the reactive and harmonic current drawn through a building’s electrical distribution system will translate into KW and KWH savings for our customers. But the standard engineering calculations for these savings do not hold up to the realities encountered within actual operational commercial and industrial facilities. Essentially, we could attempt to apply traditional power efficiency calculations to a project, and produce results that are in line with normal engineering thinking, but these projections would then be woefully inaccurate in practice. Or, we can simply apply the calculative approaches our own experience has born out as being reliable. We have chosen to use our non-traditional, yet accurate methods.
Since 1978, we have seen many projects implemented by traditional electrical engineering firms, many with readily recognized names, fall well short of projected savings, as well as cause new electrical and operational problems. We have had accepted engineering calculations applied to our own work, only to see these calculations generate predictions later shown to have been totally inaccurate for our project, with the actual savings matching our own calculations rather than the engineering calculations.
For these reasons GPI will continue to implement time proven methods in determining the savings to be realized from our projects, and will not apply standard engineering calculations to this process. It is a disservice to our customers to ignore our internally generated knowledge, gained from over 70,000 successful projects, and to, instead, apply an approach we know to be wrong. Our customers demand and expect better performance from us than this would provide.
Conclusions
We realize that we will never implement our methods into every commercial and industrial facility in the world. There will always be individuals within the companies we meet who will simply not accept the help of an experienced third party, and who will insist that we must do our work their way, rather than our way. This is the nature of business. And, for companies where this impediment prevents a GPI project installation, the only consequence will be that the savings and operating improvements from our work will never be enjoyed by that client.
However, EASI has built one of the world’s largest and most successful energy services companies on the foundation of those customers who are open to “outside” help, are interested in new approaches, and who are willing to see the wisdom of hiring a specialized firm and benefit from that firm’s unique skills and knowledge. For these progressive companies GPI is ready and able to provide immediate, responsive, and profitable assistance.
What GPI does is quite specialized. And, as a company we are extremely proud of our ethics, our competence, and our history of delivering performance to our customers. Our goal is simply to extend the growth and success we now enjoy, and to continue the process of exploration, improvement, and sound business practice that has brought us to our present position.