by Shane Henson — May 15, 2013—Small businesses searching for new ways to reduce energy costs may be able to do so while also automating their lighting with EnTouch Controls’ newest product, the EnTouch One Lighting Control Platform.
According to EnTouch Controls, a Texas-based provider of energy management systems (EMS) for small businesses and light commercial facilities, the easy-to-use, wireless, cloud-based system can help businesses reduce their energy expenses by up to 20 percent. As the company notes, for most small businesses, lighting can be the source of between 30 percent and 50 percent of their energy consumption. Heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) also consumes about the same amount of energy.
With the addition of lighting control to the already shipping HVAC controls, the EnTouch EMS is one of the first small-business EMSs to integrate control and management of the systems, says the company.
The EnTouch One Lighting Control Platform includes a wireless controller that provides automated control of interior lighting, parking lot lights and external signage. Features include a seven-day, four time-period, Web-based scheduling ability for up to four circuits of lighting. Each circuit can be equipped with a local indicator with override capabilities, 20-amp output contactors, and is compatible with external contactors that expand the number of circuits controlled.
As an added benefit, the system can help facilities to be compliant with new regulations that require outdoor lights to be turned off at certain times, such as California’s Title 24.
“Small businesses—especially restaurants and retail—are driven to manage their lighting to reduce costs but also are seeing increased regulation of lighting as governments seek to make their communities more energy efficient,” said Greg Fasullo, president and CEO of EnTouch Controls. “It’s important that those smaller businesses are able to significantly lower their energy costs just like bigger businesses, and with the EnTouch One solution we are able to help them do that.”
