The Toronto Marriott Markham is a relatively new building with a unique setup in its market. “We’ve never had a boiler. We’ve been on district energy since opening,” Fox said, adding that the hotel’s modern infrastructure made her skeptical at first that there was much efficiency left to gain. “It’s a new build, our pumps run off VFDs, and we’re actually in district energy, so I wasn’t expecting dramatic improvements – but the results were undeniable.”

Carlos Chamorro, Armstrong’s global offering manager for platform and ecosystem, explained that maintaining efficiency in a district energy setup comes down to hitting the right “delta T” – the temperature difference between supply and return water – which is crucial for both energy savings and meeting contract requirements.

“One of the key challenges that district energy has is maintaining the delta T that they actually need, so they can maintain full plant efficiency,” Chamorro said, noting that Armstrong’s technology is designed to help keep buildings compliant and efficient. “And part of what we are able to do is by ensuring that the flow setups are working as they should, we can also ensure that the delta T that is there, and thus the energy transfer coming out of the system, is actually at the level that the district energy needs it to be.”

Testing Smart Pumps

Fox said Armstrong’s cloud-based dashboard made the efficiency gap immediately obvious. “It even shows up on here, but, like, when the Armstrong pump is running, it was all yellow,” she said, describing how the dashboard used color-coded bars to represent different energy usage levels. “You could look at this on a weekly basis through the summer, and you could look at the total energy of the lifetime.” The platform allowed her to track energy consumption, system performance, and compliance with district energy requirements in real time and historically, all in one place.

The Armstrong dashboard, accessible via cloud software, displays not only current and historical energy use but also key performance indicators like delta T, system alerts, and compliance bins. For Fox’s team, this meant they could easily compare their old and new pump performance with visual graphs, color-coding, and downloadable reports – making it much easier to justify capital investments to ownership.

Chamorro explained how the energy data compared between the Armstrong Tango pump and the existing VFD pump over the summer. “Starting in August, we tracked energy use weekly,” he said, pointing to the dashboard. “The competitor’s pump was consistently using just over 400 kilowatts, while the Armstrong pump ran between 100 and 150 kilowatts depending on demand. When you look at the total energy consumed over the period, the difference is clear. While the competitor’s pump showed typical energy use, our pump saved significant energy. If we had run Armstrong pumps all along, the overall consumption bars would have been much lower.”

The math was hard to ignore. “That’s around 70% energy reduction that we could measure and verify for our customer and reduce that barrier to entry,” Chamorro said, adding that seeing real numbers made it much easier to convince the owners. “The next time, as a customer, you don’t have to think about, ‘Do I allocate CapEx for this or not?’ She could look at her savings and say, ‘You know what? This is a no-brainer for me. Not only allows me to do my sustainability message, but it’s also saving me energy, and in addition to that, is helping my guest experience.’”

District energy, Chamorro noted, can be highly efficient, but only if buildings avoid penalties by staying within their heat exchange requirements. “District heating is definitely more efficient than a chiller plant,” he said. “The problem with district heating for customers is that if they are not exchanging heat correctly, they get a penalty from the district heating network.”

Tailoring a Solution

Armstrong tailored the monitoring system to give Fox’s team clear, daily data on compliance. “For this particular customer, we tailored the envelope advisor in such a way that they’re able to see the heat exchange in bins on a daily basis, and they could show compliance or no compliance,” Chamorro explained. “Because otherwise the customer is running blind, right? They just get a bill that says, district energy, here is a higher elevator bill. You did not comply with delta T, and now it’s using their data. And then the building has no data to back or to test. So now Kirsty has a very comprehensive report where she can look and track her KPIs as a hotel part of this district energy, her daily bins of, how is she compliant or not, right, with the team?”

Fox emphasized that you don’t need a district energy system to see major savings. “You don’t need district heating for this solution,” she said. “If you do a case study, yeah, without district... that’s amazing. I think our owners were as well, they’re like, ‘Did – I don’t think they expected the savings.’ So literally, I presented it like a month ago, and they didn’t even, like, think about it. They’re like, ‘Okay, well, both the capital projects pumps, for sure. For sure.’”

Armstrong’s impact extends beyond hospitality. At the University of Pennsylvania’s $1.6 billion Clifton Center for Medical Breakthroughs, Armstrong partnered with Schneider Electric to optimize a 6,250-ton centralized chilled water plant critical to patient comfort and system efficiency. Using Armstrong’s opti-visor control module integrated with Schneider’s EcoStruxure Building Management platform, the project achieved an average plant efficiency of 0.5 kW/ton and four-year energy savings exceeding 7.8 million kWh.

Fox said the data-driven platform changed how she reports and manages building performance. “We used to have to enter all our data into Marriott’s system, which, like, pulls everything through,” she said, explaining that now, energy use is visible in real time and broken down by each system. “So right now in Toronto, they’re in heating season, so pumps are highly active, or 100 units highly active. Everything else, exhaust fans are not active.”

Looking back on a cold Canadian winter, Fox wished she’d had Armstrong’s platform on all her heating pumps. “I wish that I had the pumps being made right now, too, but I wish our heating pump was upon the Armstrong one right now, just, like, running full. So I know that, like, my finishing bonus, because it’s been, like, the coldest winter we’ve had in Canada. Yeah, wow,” she said. “So that’s the power of the platform, right? It’s not just about saving energy. It’s about having the visibility and control to keep guests comfortable, avoid emergencies, and prove every claim with data.”

Armstrong’s Envelope Platform doesn’t replace a building’s automation system – it sits alongside, turning complex HVAC data into insights operators can act on. “We don’t step in for automation systems ... What we do is run the rules against the operation and then tell the customer, ‘Hey, you’re not in compliance with this particular guideline,’” Chamorro explained. That means Fox and her team can spot – and fix – issues before they become emergencies, and building owners always have the numbers to back up their next investment.

By making district heating visible and measurable, Armstrong’s platform helped Fox’s team stay compliant and energy efficient – while avoiding costly penalties. But Fox pointed out that the savings at Marriott Markham are only the beginning. “Without district heating, the savings would be even bigger,” she concluded.