Texas Children’s Hospital Extends Relationship with Aircuity to Boost Energy Efficiency in its Neurological Research Institute Facility

NEWTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aircuity, the smart airside efficiency company, today announced that Texas Children’s Hospital has completed its third OptiNet installation in its Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (NRI) building. Leveraging Aircuity’s demand control ventilation (DCV) technology, the hospital developed a ventilation optimization program designed to enhance the indoor air quality while significantly decreasing energy costs within its state-of-the-art research facility. Aircuity has not only helped NRI achieve silver-level LEED-certification, but will also provide the hospital with a projected annual energy savings of over $221K. With Aircuity’s help, the NRI recently received the Silver Building Team Award from Building Design & Construction magazine.

“Today’s hospitals are faced with a host of challenges, but none as complex as finding cost-effective ways to provide a safe and healthy working environment while keeping up with strict energy efficiency commitments”

Through real-time measurement of the laboratory environment, Aircuity’s OptiNet system provides Texas Children’s Hospital with the assurance that the ventilation rates can be lowered and increased if contaminants are sensed, thus providing a safer and more energy efficient operation for their laboratories. By reducing the air changes when lab conditions are determined to be clean and increasing the ventilation only when needed, DCV will help to maintain safe and energy efficient ventilation to the hospital’s NRI facility. In addition, OptiNet’s continuous monitoring will provide lab managers with critical information that they can use to analyze and improve lab procedures.

In 2006, the hospital first selected Aircuity to improve energy efficiency in its newly developed Feigin Center, an eight-story vertical expansion project, specifically designed for the advancement of pediatric medicine. The expansion now houses research labs, clinical research offices, GMP space for gene therapies, a simulation center, expanded vivarium and an animal imaging center. As a result, the Texas Children’s Hospital received an honorable mention in R&D magazine’s 2010 Laboratory of the Year Award.

“Today’s hospitals are faced with a host of challenges, but none as complex as finding cost-effective ways to provide a safe and healthy working environment while keeping up with strict energy efficiency commitments,” said Robert Brierley, COO of Aircuity. “We are very proud of the role Aircuity has played in helping Texas Children’s achieve these goals, and in furthering our relationship to allow the hospital to focus on what they do best - providing cutting-edge research and pediatric care.”

Texas Children's Hospital is an internationally recognized full-care pediatric hospital located in the Texas Medical Center (TMC) in Houston. One of the largest pediatric hospitals in the United States, Texas Children’s Hospital is dedicated to providing the finest possible pediatric patient care, education and research. The 344,000 square foot silver-level LEED-certified NRI building, nestled in the heart of the TMC, relocates Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and Texas Children’s researchers working on neurodevelopment and neurological diseases under one roof. NRI also physically links BCM and Texas Children’s to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where University of Texas collaborators lend strength in developmental biology and epigenetics. Most importantly, NRI's location adjacent to the hospitals fosters relationships between the lab and the clinic, which are integral to the translational research enterprise.

About Aircuity

Aircuity is the smart airside efficiency company providing building owners with sustained energy savings through its intelligent measurement solutions. By combining real-time sensing and continuous analysis of indoor environments, the company has helped commercial, institutional and lab building owners lower operating costs, improve safety and become more energy efficient. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Newton, MA, Aircuity’s solutions have benefitted organizations such as the University of Pennsylvania, Eli Lilly, Masdar City, the Bank of America Tower and the University of California-Irvine. For additional information on the company and its solutions, please visit: http://www.aircuity.com.