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Melink's corporate campus in Milford, Ohio, is our conservation, energy efficiency and renewable energy laboratory, where we conduct research and development on all three divisions, Melink® T&B, Intelli-Hood®, and Melink® Solar.
Melink test and balance service (Melink T&B) research and development focuses on efficiency in the field and technician best practices. Our technicians encounter many different types of air devices in the field and we train them on several versions of diffusers, vents, grilles and filters connected to our own wind tunnel. This allows them to determine which field tools work best and are most accurate when measuring air devices in the field.
Melink also tests equipment measuring tools to see which ones work best for the industries we serve. Over the course of 25 years in the business, we have been able to put together a test and balance tool kit that is now our standard issue for every one of our technicians, and we continue to test and improve so our technicians can complete each project efficiently.
Research and development for Intelli-Hood has been instrumental in improving the system for our customers. Our R&D lab is set up to simulate varying commercial kitchen conditions such as different hood lengths and fluctuations in temperatures. We also test Intelli-Hood with different types of variable frequency drives (VFDs) to ensure the systems interface properly when installed.
We also use R&D to download data from select customers to monitor how Intelli-Hood is working in real-world conditions. We look at different industries – hotels, hospitals, restaurants, supermarkets among others – to determine how the system is working based on location and usage.
With more than 100kW of different types of solar PV systems, a wind turbine, geothermal, solar thermal, biomass, and coming summer 2011, a battery storage system, Melink is known for having one of the greenest buildings in the world. However being in the solar business allows us to focus much of our renewable energy technology assessment on solar PV.
Headquarter projects have included 4 different PV technologies—crystalline silicon, amorphous silicon, CdTe and CIGS. Designs incorporated 9 different PV manufacturers, 6 racking entities and inverters from two companies. All are being reviewed and tested to allow us to choose the best solar PV products for our customers’ needs.
Melink's corporate headquarters was the first Gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified office building in Ohio and is only one of a select few buildings in the nation to have achieved Platinum LEED certification for an existing building. Our Energy Star rating is 99% and as of 2011, Melink is net zero energy, meaning that the energy the building consumes is offset by on-site renewable energy production from Melink's solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, geothermal, biomass and wind energy systems. All of this has been possible by constantly conserving energy, improving the systems we do have and testing new systems for our clients by using our entire campus as a solar R&D lab.