Dunkin’ Brands Group – the parent company of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee shops and Baskin-Robbins ice cream shops – Eversource and National Grid have developed the Dunkin’ Brands Energy Management Program.The companies are cooperating to identify energy efficiency operations at Dunkin’ franchises locations within the two utilities’ footprints. Once found, the franchise owners are offered, according to the press release, “a simple path, generous incentives and financing for franchisees opting into the program to implement these upgrades.”
The program won the Association of Energy Services Professionals (AESP) 2017 Energy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Non-Residential Program Design and Implementation.
The release says that the program addresses whole building energy savings, provides insight into operations and system controls and encourages investments to pursue efficiency. The program, which is operational in National Grid and Eversource’s Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island territories, was given the award at the AESP’s National Conference & Expo in Orlando.
Fast food restaurants use a tremendous amount of energy. Facility Executive, in a report about testing of a revised ANSI/ASHRAE/IES standard, indicated the potential. The piece reports on testing of Standard 90.1-2016, which is the “Energy Efficiency Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings.” The revisions were made last October. Testing at Pacific Northwest National Laboratories found that the updated rules could lead to savings of 11.9 percent such restaurants.
