Schneider Electric has implemented a number of energy saving initiatives within the Building Management System of 200 Aldersgate, one of London’s iconic business locations.
200 Aldersgate, is owned by Little Britain Holdings and managed by BNP Paribas Real Estate Property Management. The team at 200 Aldersgate had identified numerous multi-tenancy energy challenges as it is occupied by a variety of consumer and B2B tenants across sectors including education, legal, catering, fitness and transport. Conflicting work practices, retail premise trading periods and non-synchronised office hours of operation were resulting in the building running inefficiently.
Schneider Electric’s engineers worked with the building’s facilities management team to identify key priorities and understand how the building is being used by tenants. On-site audits allowed the team to really understand what the customer was looking for, and what the vital requirements were. The key performance indicators in the project were comfort and cost. It was vital that the comfort levels for occupants were improved, so the whole building worked better for them, while reducing energy costs at the same time.
There was a need to optimise the existing Schneider Electric Building Management System as it had not been updated to reflect the changes in the building occupants and their usage. This offered multiple opportunities to improve the current system to help the building run more efficiently.
A contributing factor to the energy waste was that the boilers were not in sequence. Therefore, if one floor required them to be running, this would trigger the remaining boilers to turn on. Other issues included the time-schedules being over ridden resulting in the building running 24/7 even if occupied by just a single person. To overcome this, Schneider Electric optimised the use of the existing sensors so that only occupied areas of the building would be serviced and seasonal temperatures taken into account. The team has also reviewed the boilers and chillers to ensure that the HVAC systems are working effectively. Going forward, new sensors will be implemented where there is an energy cost benefit, and faulty sensors will be replaced so that the optimised software works at the maximum efficiency.
“We chose to partner with Schneider Electric as we knew that their engineers really understood what we were looking for,” said Mike Garman, technical services manager, BNP Paribas Real Estate Property Management. “Expectations have been exceeded and feedback from the tenants has been overwhelmingly positive, and the buildings’ occupants have commented on increased comfort levels. On top of this, the updates have also allowed us to save money and hopefully invest those savings into other projects,” Garman added.
In Q3 2015, the amount of gas saved due to the energy saving actions implemented by the team was 200,000 kWh reduction. This led to a cost saving to the client of over £15,000 over a three-month period (£5,000 per month over the three month period).