WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Willard InterContinental and top D.C. property developers-owners including Carr Properties, joined with Silver Bullet, a water treatment company, to introduce a system that increases building sustainability. The new patented technology creates hydrogen peroxide (natural non-toxic biocide) when injected into water, killing all bacteria, removing scale and preventing corrosion. The technology cuts water usage, electricity and toxic chemical delivery, storage and removal.
“We appreciate the opportunity to be among the first commercial entities in the nation’s capital to utilize this cost-effective and environmentally sound commercial technology,” said Patrick Birchall, general manager of the Willard InterContinental.
Silver Bullet estimates the historic, 335-room hotel has saved nearly half a million gallons of water and 14,000 megawatt hours of electricity since installing Silver Bullet in March 2013 to support the hotel’s responsible business and sustainability efforts and reduce maintenance costs.
Significant Savings in Many Areas
Up to half of a building’s water use is from cooling towers, which provide cooled water for air-conditioning, manufacturing, and electric-power generation. By targeting this component of building infrastructure for efficiency with Silver Bullet’s water treatment system, property owners can immediately realize significant savings in electricity, water, labor and maintenance, while meeting corporate and government directed sustainability goals, and saving money.
“Lerner is pleased to announce that we are installing the Silver Bullet system throughout our entire D.C. area portfolio of properties,” said Scott Mead, a representative of Lerner Enterprises. Lerner Enterprises is one of the largest private real-estate developers in the Greater Washington D.C. area. “We tested the effectiveness of Silver Bullet in treating our cooling towers and condenser systems for 16 months and we were pleased with the results and the energy and water savings that followed. We expect to save millions of gallons of water and tens of thousands of kilowatt hours of electricity, allowing us to decrease the overall operating costs and increase the sustainability of our properties without any investment of capital.”
Silver Bullet estimates Lerner has saved enough water to fill more than 75 Olympic sized swimming pools since installing its first system in 2011. Silver Bullet systems are currently installed at 19 of Lerner’s properties and that number continues to grow.
System Installed at NORAD Facility
Silver Bullet is already helping the Department of Defense meet its sustainability goals. Its system at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), located in the Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colo., is saving more than 1,000 megawatt hours a year of electricity and more than one million gallons of water a year.
If Silver Bullet’s technology were installed on 20,000 cooling towers, just 1 percent of the commercial cooling towers in the United States, water savings could top 10 billion gallons a year and reduce electricity consumption by more than 1,200 megawatts of power.
Carr Properties installed the Silver Bullet system on five of its properties in Washington D.C. since December of 2012, including the Willard InterContinental in March of this year. Silver Bullet estimates those five properties have saved more than 4.5 million gallons of water and 105,000 megawatt hours of electricity.
Experienced Professional Developed Technology
The Silver Bullet system was created by chief technology officer David Kolstad following three decades of experience as an operating engineer in power plants, commercial buildings and hospitals. David’s hands-on work with traditional, chemical-based approaches to water treatment inspired him to develop a more efficient, lower maintenance and safer solution.
The Silver Bullet system provides a safe and highly efficient treatment that serves as a biocide that reduces and eliminates scaling and significantly reduces corrosion, while increasing energy efficiency and reducing water consumption.
A University of Pittsburgh study confirmed the effectiveness of Silver Bullet System in reducing biological growth in cooling towers. It performed “significantly better” than previously tested non-chemical solutions in controlling free-floating and immobile growth of HPC bacteria. Test results showed that the Silver Bullet device reduced the average free-floating HPC bacteria concentration by 98.8 percent, and met generally accepted industrial biofouling control recommendation for free-floating bacteria. The test also showed that Silver Bullet’s technology reduced concentrations of biofilm HPC bacteria by 85.9 percent, and free-floating Legionella bacteria by 78.1 percent.
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