## Cost-saving strategies HVAC equipment runs to maintain adequate zone temperatures. Some zones, like classrooms, must maintain a comfortable temperature only while people occupy them. When a zone is no longer occupied, you can define different setpoints that require less energy to maintain. Use WebCTRL® Schedules for these occupied/unoccupied zones so that equipment runs only as needed to reduce energy consumption, but not comfort. Other zones, like computer server rooms and production floors, must maintain particular cooling and heating setpoints 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Schedules would have no cost-saving effect on them. Use one of the other cost-saving strategies to reduce energy consumption and equipment repairs for these kinds of zones. You can realize the greatest savings by using Schedules. Then fine tune Optimal Start, Demand Control, and Setpoint Optimization. Each strategy depends on a particular microblock.
Microblock | Strategy | Description
| Schedules | Define when a building or zone is occupied and whether or not equipment should run, depending on the occupied setpoints.
| Optimal Start | Ensures that a zone’s ideal comfort range is reached just as the zone becomes occupied.
| Demand Control | Relaxes heating or cooling setpoints when a certain level of energy use is reached in order to avoid peak demand, ratchet, or time of use electric charges.
| Setpoint Optimization (Trim and Respond) | Calculates a piece of equipment’s setpoint based on the number of heating or cooling requests it receives from other equipment.