MESA CASE STUDY: AMBER CHARTER SCHOOLS
Amber Charter School was founded in 2000 as the first Latino-led charter school in New York State by the Community Association of Progressive Dominicans (ACDP), a community-based organization. There are several Amber Charter schools situated in New York City, including the Kingsbridge Elementary in the borough of The Bronx.
Playing catch up on hot/cold complaints
With the Kingsbridge Elementary school spread across nearly 35,000 square feet in size, the Amber Charter facilities team found it difficult to solve staff complaints on time. This is because Viktar Pranevich, the Network Director of Facilities, had to physically be present at these locations to make the necessary temperature adjustments.
Viktar and his facilities team at Amber Charter received at least 5 hot / cold complaints daily and these requests took time to troubleshoot because he lacked reliable data that would help him identify the root cause. The use of non-programmable thermostats did not help either as it limited Viktar and his team to realize energy savings. The room also suffered from poor design as the Facilities team had to place large boxes around the thermostats to prevent tampering.
This pushed Viktar to look for a product that gave him control of the entire school’s HVAC remotely and an effortless way to automate savings when the school was not in use.
“I couldn’t be in every single building every day. I needed an easy to navigate product that will help me meet my staff’s temperature preferences from anywhere”.
— Viktar Pranevich, Network Director of Facilities, Amber Charter Schools
A product backed by a supportive team
What instilled confidence in Amber Charter towards Mesa was its ease of setup, access to the school’s HVAC from anywhere and the human touch that the Mesa team provided during the installation and onboarding process.
The biggest win for Amber Charter was using Mesa to make temperature adjustments on-the-go and avoiding redundant classroom visits. The lockout feature in smart thermostats also eliminated the need for boxes and improved the inherent design of classrooms.
Viktar and his facilities team at Amber Charter could now use Mesa’s smart thermostats and smart plugs combined with the Mesa dashboard to schedule temperature setbacks and save energy during off-peak times such as summer months, holidays and weekends.
“What attracted me towards Mesa was the team’s attitude and approach during the sales and onboarding process. They made me feel comfortable throughout and someone even came to my school to take measurements”.
— Viktar Pranevich, Network Director of Facilities, Amber Charter Schools
Another key benefit was Mesa’s helpful data on how temperature preferences differed by individual spaces in a building, giving Viktar and his facilities team a better picture of the teaching staff’s requirements.
The Mesa dashboard allows instant overrides to all temperature setpoints, shows monthly reports of energy savings and provides equipment runtime data over time.
Comfort for staff, control for facility teams
Amber Charter has seen significant benefits with Mesa. Mesa’s comfort buttons have given the teaching staff more ways to communicate their preferences to the facilities team and they’ve seen faster resolutions to complaints owing to real-time setpoint adjustments from the Mesa dashboard.
Amber Charter’s facilities team, led by Viktar Pranevich, has seen considerable time and energy savings as well. Viktar saves on average 30 minutes every day, or 10 hours every month, avoiding the need for in-person changes at individual thermostats. In the summer of 2022, Amber Charter realized 33% in cooling runtime reduction and 139 kWh in utility savings from plug loads with the help of automated schedules and temperature setbacks.
— Viktar Pranevich
Network Director of Facilities, Amber Charter Schools