Working on a casino client here in Vegas and their kWh/sq ft is coming in at 45 compared to what I'm seeing as 28-32 industry average for gaming facilities. Anyone know where NV Energy publishes their commercial benchmarks or have access to reliable third-party data? The client is questioning my analysis and I need solid backup numbers. Their June bill was $187,000 on Schedule GS-3 and I'm convinced there's waste here.
NV Energy benchmark data - where to find reliable comparisons?
Kim, I don't have NV Energy specific data but we use the CBECS database for most of our benchmarking work here in Denver with Xcel. For gaming/entertainment you might want to segment by whether they have hotel operations attached. Stand-alone casinos typically run 35-42 kWh/sq ft in our experience. The HVAC load from all that cigarette smoke filtration really drives up usage. Have you looked at their demand charges? That's usually where the biggest savings are.
Carl, good point on the hotel operations. This is stand-alone, about 85,000 sq ft gaming floor. Their demand has been hitting 2,400 kW consistently which seems high. I'll check if they're on the right rate schedule - might be better off on Schedule GS-4 if they qualify. Thanks for the CBECS tip, hadn't thought to segment that way.
We had a similar situation with a tribal casino up here in Wisconsin on WE Energies. Turned out their air handling units were running 24/7 even in unoccupied areas. Simple programming changes on the BMS dropped their usage by 18%. Also found they were paying demand charges on auxiliary equipment that could have been load-shed during peak hours. Saved them about $2,300/month.
Linda makes a great point about the BMS programming. Down here in Florida with FPL, we see a lot of gaming facilities that never optimized their controls after initial installation. Kim, you might want to get 15-minute interval data from NV Energy if you can. The load profile will tell you a lot about whether their demand spikes are legitimate or just poor load management.
Kim, I just pulled some data from our Oklahoma clients. We have three casinos on OG&E that average 38-41 kWh/sq ft. One thing to check - are they including parking lot lighting in the square footage calculation? We see that mistake a lot. Also, older slot machines are energy hogs compared to newer models. If they haven't upgraded their gaming floor in 5+ years, that could explain the higher usage.
Steve, excellent catch on the slot machines! I didn't even think about the age of the equipment. This place has been around since the mid-90s and a lot of the gaming floor looks original. I'll ask about their equipment refresh schedule. The parking lot lighting is definitely being counted in their total load but not the square footage, so that's skewing the numbers too. Really appreciate everyone's input on this one.
No problem Kim. One last thought - if you can get them to install some temporary metering on different circuits, you can build a really detailed benchmark breakdown. We did this for a Creek Nation casino and found their kitchen exhaust fans were pulling way more power than necessary. Sometimes you have to get granular to find the real problems.