December 5, 2013
Diaz Yourman & Associates (DYA) moves toward net-zero energy consumption
Diaz Yourman & Associates (DYA) is a small business Civil engineering firm practicing in the specialty of Geotechnical engineering. At DYA sustainability has always been a watchword, not only in our environmentally aware engineering solutions but in our corporate culture. We follow the guidelines of reduce, reuse and recycle. Our fleet and principals’ cars include two hybrids and two high-efficiency diesels. We have installed low-water-use fixtures as they have needed replacement and have converted our landscaping to low-water-use native plants.
To improve energy efficiency in our 10,000-SF office building, we replaced a single, inefficient HVAC 40 ton system with nine high-efficiency three to five ton units that are zone-controlled by programmable thermostats. This reduced our power consumption by over 40% from the pre improvement baseline year (2004). We have since changed all of the lighting fixtures to low-energy fluorescents and LEDs, installed motion sensor light switches, film to lower the “e” rating of our windows, and have installed a new white “cool roof” to lower our electric consumption even more. These reduced our power consumption by nearly 64% below the baseline year.
One of our founding principles, Jerry Diaz, has demonstrated home energy conservation/efficiency to the point where his home is on track to achieve near net zero electric consumption with a solar photovoltaic (PV) system comprised of only 14 panels. Following similar strategies we have recently (December 2013) completed installation of a 200 panel PV system on our office building. It is conservatively designed, by our Solar Contractor, Quality Solar Solutions, to provide nearly 90% of our electrical energy demand and we expect that actual generation and further conservation will allow us to achieve near net zero electric energy consumption.
The Pictures show the rooftop PV installation, on our building at 1616 E. 17th Street, Santa Ana, and a smiling Jerry turning on the switch on December 5, 2013. If you’d like to see how it is performing, click on the following link: https://www.solarweb.com/Account/GuestLogOn?pvSystemId=6c53edd8-c8d3-4805-a2c4-a2ad01457ed3
