Hot Notion

Hot Notion A new use for computers

Driven by bottom-line imperatives, U.S. companies have been notably inventive in cutting energy bills. One of the more intriguing ideas now comes from INSCO Systems of Neptune, N.J., a smallish (850 employees) subsidiary of Continental Corp., the big insurance group. During a natural gas shortage three winters ago, INSCO, which sells computer services to Continental and other insurers, decided that it could save fuel through what was literally an open-door policy. So one cold Friday evening, the doors throughout the firm's three story, 102,000-sq.-ft. building were left open so that the heat given off by its data processing equipment--three large IBM 3033 computers, two printers and 160 disc and tape units--could flow to every floor. During that weekend, although the boilers were cut off, office temperatures dropped no more than three degrees.

Inspired, INSCO asked a New Jersey architectural and engineering firm named CUH2A to design a way to make full use of the 1.5 million B.T.U.s per hr. of the normally wasted heat from the computers. In place since last year, the CUH2A system employs a maze of pipes, coils and heat exchangers that allow the byproduct B.T.U.s to heat both air space and water in the original building and in a new 72,000-sq.-ft. annex. Though the system cost $90,000, it has been a boon.

Last winter the old gas-fired boilers were not required at all for hot air, and the company's yearly gas bill has been cut from $40,000 to $15,000 (some boiler heat was still needed for hot water heating). The company also avoided having to put in the new annex separate boilers that would have cost $125,000 to install and would have burned $30,000 worth of gas annually. "The system will pay for itself by the end of this year," predicts INSCO Senior Vice President William Barren. "Last winter we were running at 78DEG to 82DEG, and we wished we could have sold some of the heat."

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