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National Movie Theater Chain Achieves Significant Energy Savings with IoT
Technology Category
- Sensors - Environmental Sensors
- Sensors - Humidity Sensors
Applicable Industries
- Buildings
- Utilities
Applicable Functions
- Facility Management
- Maintenance
Use Cases
- Demand Planning & Forecasting
- Water Utility Management
Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
A national movie theater chain with several hundred locations across the US faced unique energy use challenges due to the nature of their business model. The theaters operate with large square footage, offer showtimes from morning to midnight, and have multiple screens in operation simultaneously. The chain was tasked with maintaining a comfortable environment across multiple rooms in large buildings while balancing energy and facility costs. The brand had also acquired new locations that had no HVAC control systems, leading to severe humidity issues, uncomfortable temperatures, and additional facility maintenance costs. The theater chain sought a single turnkey solution across its locations that could provide detailed information on theater operations and insights into their HVAC issues and site energy consumption. They needed to reduce energy costs, standardize HVAC control systems, and correct uncomfortable humidity levels without a major capital investment.
About The Customer
The customer is a national movie theater chain with several hundred locations throughout the US. The chain serves millions of customers and aims to provide a best-in-class movie-going experience for its attendees in every location. The theaters operate with large square footage, offer showtimes from morning to midnight, and have multiple screens in operation simultaneously. The chain was tasked with maintaining a comfortable environment across multiple rooms in large buildings while balancing energy and facility costs. The brand had also acquired new locations that had no HVAC control systems, leading to severe humidity issues, uncomfortable temperatures, and additional facility maintenance costs.
The Solution
GridPoint’s Energy Management as a Service (EMaaS) offering provided the brand with the flexibility to avoid a large upfront capital and the option to take on the project as a monthly operational expense. EMaaS combines installation, hardware, software, and services into one monthly fee that is typically funded by the energy savings generated. GridPoint installed HVAC controls and humidity sensors across the initial set of theaters and implemented a strategy to tackle the humidity challenges. GridPoint’s Energy Advisory team was also able to identify that exhaust from the movie projectors was a large contributor to the high humidity levels. The humidity data GridPoint collected helped validate the necessary facility updates needed to correct this design flaw. GridPoint also successfully integrated HVAC control schedules with showtime data to automatically sync their schedules and prevent energy waste. GridPoint enrolled several theater sites in demand response programs to manage peak energy costs while supporting grid stability.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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