Dave Gunnels in the Pontiac Powertrain Engineering Center's Engine Room
- 12 years ago
(3BL Media / theCSRfeed) Pontiac, MI - February 3, 2012 - Engineers at General Motors’ Pontiac Engineering Center are powering parts of the facility with excess energy produced from testing engines.
Since Pontiac began the energy efficiency project following a 2008 renovation, the facility has regenerated more than 26.7 million kilowatt hours of energy to power internal processes. This is the equivalent of the electricity consumed by 2,326 U.S. households in one year.
The savings is no accident. GM engineers built in this capability as they renovated and expanded the facility four years ago.
“Pontiac was a brownfield project, which meant parts of it were in existence already, but other wings of the facility had to be built from the ground up,” said Dave Gunnels, engineering manager for Pontiac test facilities. “The benefit of building from scratch was that we were able to bake in energy efficiency aspects directly into the system, rather than trying to retrofit.”
Since Pontiac began the energy efficiency project following a 2008 renovation, the facility has regenerated more than 26.7 million kilowatt hours of energy to power internal processes. This is the equivalent of the electricity consumed by 2,326 U.S. households in one year.
The savings is no accident. GM engineers built in this capability as they renovated and expanded the facility four years ago.
“Pontiac was a brownfield project, which meant parts of it were in existence already, but other wings of the facility had to be built from the ground up,” said Dave Gunnels, engineering manager for Pontiac test facilities. “The benefit of building from scratch was that we were able to bake in energy efficiency aspects directly into the system, rather than trying to retrofit.”