January 2004


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 Micro Thermo Provides
Costco with Seamless Equipment Integration


 Micro Thermo
Technologies Announces
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Micro Thermo Provides Costco with Seamless Equipment Integration

Costco BuildingWhen Costco® Wholesale, national retailer of brand name products, from computers and clothing to gardening and gourmet food, was building its new Inglewood, CA warehouse, they wanted a single, user-friendly building automation system that could integrate equipment from various refrigeration, HVAC and lighting manufacturers.

Based on Costco’s positive experience with Micro Thermo’s system in its Rancho Cucamonga store (opened May 2002), MT was awarded the project for Inglewood. Micro Thermo’s flexible, interoperable LonWorks®-based system is being used in Costco-Inglewood today to control and monitor Hussmann refrigeration equipment, Trane rooftop units, Square D lighting panels, and various refrigerated display merchandisers. Several noteworthy Micro Thermo system advantages employed at Costco-Inglewood include the following:
  • The rooftop units have factory-integrated controls that communicate using the same open protocol that Micro Thermo employs. Therefore, no controllers or sensors had to be field-installed at the job site, dramatically reducing installation time and expense. Costco is using Micro Thermo's system to maintain positive building pressure and monitor air quality and CO2 levels throughout the store, providing a comfortable and healthy environment for its employees and members.


  • Micro Thermo interfaces with Square D's PowerLink™ lighting control to enable a load-shedding strategy based on ambient lighting. The building is divided into separate zones, and the lights in each zone are further divided into three groups. An algorithm adjusts the lighting in each zone to specified levels, rotating the groups being shed, thereby enabling energy savings and even-wear of lighting equipment.


  • A Console (KVM) Extender is conveniently mounted in the equipment room. This monitor and keypad are connected to the MT Alliance™ PC, which resides in the manager's office, allowing MT Alliance access from a second location in the building.


  • MT-ViewFuture plans call for the installation of MT VIEW, Micro Thermo's new flat-panel, touch-screen controller. MT VIEW can be used as an additional interface or as an alternative to the desktop PC typically located in the manager's office. The MT VIEW provides the same capabilities that the standard MT Alliance desktop PC offers for control, monitoring and analyzing equipment operations while providing an easy to use touch screen environment.
Anthony Stout, Costco-Inglewood Warehouse Manager, noted, “In our other warehouses we have had to deal with separate lighting, HVAC, and refrigeration control systems and contractors. With Micro Thermo, we were able to integrate equipment from all manufacturers under a single energy management interface.”

Micro Thermo’s technology offers food retailers unlimited options to integrate the best equipment, bringing together various manufacturers as partners for an optimized solution.

 

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