Biltmore Farms – Hunt Briggs – 2009

Goals 

Hunt Briggs spent his summer at Biltmore Farms, a prominent community development firm in Asheville, NC. Briggs, an MBA/MS student at the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute, was asked to work with the commercial operations manager to determine the best protocol for managing energy in four of the company’s facilities. 

Solutions

Biltmore Farms is comprised of four divisions: Commercial, Communities, Homes and Hotels. One of the facilities of interest was the DoubleTree Biltmore Hotel. The hotel is responsible for a substantial portion of Biltmore Farms’ electricity consumption, so Briggs prioritized projects for this location. He identified several energy efficiency opportunities including the installation of occupancy sensors in lobbies, hallways and conference rooms; lighting retrofits and the installation of variable frequency drives.

Potential Impact

In total, Briggs identified opportunities across two properties that could reduce annual energy costs by approximately $77,000, cut approximately 830,000 kWh of electricity and avoid 421 tons of CO2 emissions.