Ortho Clinical Diagnostics – Varun Ajmera – 2015

Goals

Ortho Clinical Diagnostics (Ortho) is a global in vitro diagnostics leader serving the global clinical laboratory and transfusion medicine communities. Ortho brought in EDF Climate Corps fellow Varun Ajmera to help reduce energy costs by recommending efficiency opportunities for its 450,000 square foot slide manufacturing facility in Rochester, NY.

Solutions

Ajmera focused on two projects while at Ortho: reducing energy costs from HVAC systems and domestic hot water heaters. For the HVAC project, he performed an outside air study and conducted a detailed analysis of the impact of fresh air on utility costs. In the end, he recommended the use of variable frequency drives to modulate the fresh air intake into the HVACs. For the domestic hot water heating project, Ajmera discovered that the facility generated more than 25,000 gallons of steam condensate each day, which could potentially be used to heat the water. Ajmera developed a cost analysis model for this system and observed that  steam savings could result in cost savings in the summer months.

Potential Impact

Ajmera developed optimized cost models for both the HVAC and domestic hot water heating projects.