CASE STUDYSYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

BUENO were engaged by the previous owners of a high profile Sydney office building to deploy a pilot of our analytics managed service on the BMS, sub-meters and utility meters at the building. The property is a ~25,000m2 commercial building with a single tenant with long hours of operation throughout various floors. The building has a NABERS Energy rating of 5.0 (5.35) Stars. BUENO began to roll out our monitoring service in Nov-Dec 2013.

OVERVIEW

The pilot is a good example of BUENO’s service offering being deployed in a challenging environment. Given the impending handover of operation of the building, many of our more significant recommendations were put into a holding pattern until the new FM team could transition into control of the property. Our influence was effectively limited to fault detection and very minor tuning items – in essence plugging leaks as they arose and maintaining building performance until the new operators could provide more definitive directions.

ENERGYSAVINGS

$30KPER YEAR

IMPROVED

NABERSRATING

CASE STUDYSYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

After handover of the property to the new owners and operators in the last couple of months we have been able to implement some of the more strategic changes that we had earlier proposed.

Many of our more substantial recommendations are now in the progress of being implemented; with this, we expect to see more significant energy savings to be delivered at the site over the coming months. In total >$30,000 / yr worth of savings have been identified (with a climate corrected $12,700 worth of savings implemented/achieved year to date) and the building is tracking at 5.5 star performance.

IDENTIFIED ACTIONS

The following sections describe a selection of the recommendations that we have provided to the FM team at the building. As previously discussed, due to the handover of operation of the property, only some have been implemented while others have been in a holding pattern over the past few months.

Operational

The following items have been identified which have lead to operational improvements at the site:

• Executed: Our initial deployment review identified that the BMS controller operating the main plant was significantly overloaded. Memory and CPU loads were consistently >100% of capacity (standard practice is to limit to average load of <60%). If this controller had failed the entire plantroom and every AHU in the building would have been affected. At our recommendation this controller was upgraded to a higher specification unit.

• Executed: We have implemented a rule to identify tripped VAV EDH’s and can automatically identify all EDH’s that need to be reset throughout the building

• Executed: We identified that the control for the L17 AHU fan was incorrectly programmed to be driven from the signal of the L7 VAVs. This floor had a long history of tenant comfort complaints.

• Executed: As part of our deployment works we “de-proprietarised” the sub-metering system at the site. This means that the system can be maintained and expanded by any number of potential contractors in the marketplace, allowing the operator the luxury of competitive pricing.

• Identified: We have identified a set of control strategies that can be implemented to reduce the accumulated starts on the low load chiller by 500-1,000 per year (an impact of the regular after hours operation at low load)

• Identified: There are numerous VAVs not meeting flow set-points across the building whilst others are over-pressurised.

Maintenance

The BUENO managed service has directed the following maintenance activities at the site:

• Executed: 5 erroneous zone temperature sensors calibrated

• Executed: 7 erroneous supply air temperature sensors calibrated

• Identified: EDH active on ground and mezzanine floors without supply fan operation

• Identified: OAT sensor deviates significantly from weather station.

• Identified: There are potential occurences of duct leakage/disconnection that have been identified on several floors in the building.

• Identified: various minor issues such as unstable control loops (EDH short cycling) and non-uniform zone temperature set-points across the building.

CASE STUDYSYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

If we were to focus the contract maintenance scope on the above maintenance only, rather than calibrating 25% of sensors every 3 months, this could form the framework of an “on-demand” maintenance model which could significantly reduce contract maintenance scopes, while maintaining/improving delivery of service.

Energy efficiency

As part of our managed service delivery we have incorporated executing the following works under the R&M allowance for the site:

• Executed: VAVs serving the ground floor lift lobby were found to be heating overnight during some summer nights. After hours this area is only occupied by security guards that have their own PAC unit serving their office.

• Work in progress: AHU fan turndown is limited by the setting of flow switches on each level. Removing this limitation can save >30% of AHU fan energy at the site. Historically this low limit had been implemented as a band-aid to correct a programming error in the control of the AHUs. This is being rolled out at a rate of 5 AHUs / month starting in May.

• Identified: The economy cycle is not being fully utilised during long hours operation. Air is short-circuiting from non-occupied floors (through the min-OA dampers) via the OA plenum and into the operating floors. This is causing unnecessary chiller operation.

• Identified: the chiller efficiency controls (CHW and CDW temp reset) are not optimised. Particularly during after hours operation.

• Identified: Units connected to the tenant condenser water loop do not have auto-shut off valves installed.

• Identified: Reverse flow during stage 1 parallel fan reheat operation (sub-optimal AHU pressure control).

• Identified: high lift standby energy consumption (approx. 4-5kW/car when industry standard is approx. 1 kW/car).

We have assessed that the savings from the above will be in the order of $30,000 / yr above and beyond the achieved savings so far. These items are being rolled out as the new FM team has started setting the direction of the building works.

RESULTS

Energy savings

The graph below shows a year on year comparison of the average daily load profile for each of the six months of the pilot. The figures shown are the 2013 and 2014 actual electricity consumption, as well as the weather normalised 2014 consumption (given that the climate has been less favourable in 2014).

The analysis of results are that:

• In real terms the site has saved 49,600 kWh of electricity and $7,500 of energy costs during the pilot to date.

• In weather corrected terms the site has avoided consumption of 84,400 kWh and $12,700 of energy cost to date.

In context it is important to note that the energy savings are increasing over time as we implement more of our wholesale strategic changes to the operation of the site. This is evident in the figure above where minimal benefit was observed during the period Jan-Mar (while increasing savings are observed for Apr-Jul) since most issues were placed in holding pattern during the property transition period.

CASE STUDYSYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

Thermal Comfort

Comparing the available data, the comfort conditions have improved as is shown in the graph below:

We note that this is not an exhaustive review (we are comparing summer to winter data) but we expect that the coming months will show a more conclusive improvement in service provided to tenants.

NABERS

Based on NABERS tracking data provided by the FM, the month-month NABERS rating performance has improved over the deployment of BUENO’s service as per the following:

We note that the energy consumption has improved in June and July which is not shown on this NABERS performance graph yet. So it is likely that the site is tracking at or above 5.5 stars now.

CONCLUSION

In context, given the operational limitations during handover of the building and the increased cooling load, we would class the pilot as being successful at maintaining the performance of the building during a very challenging operational climate. Additionally, we have identified a substantial amount of additional works at a building that is performing above 5.0 stars NABERS which had already been under the traditional energy monitoring model for 5 years.

BUENO’s costs for this site are in the order of $12,000 for setup (as a once off fee) and $18,000 / yr as an ongoing managed service fee. With identified energy savings of $30,000 / yr so far, and avoided costs of $15,000/year charged by the previous metering provider, a positive financial benefit can be realised from year 1 (see table below) even if we assume partial rectification of the identified issues (say $25,000).

It is important to note that BUENO’s benefits are far more than just energy cost savings/avoidance. Our core operational benefits far exceeds energy management and include improvements to maintenance processes/workflow, site/management reporting processes and tenant comfort levels etc. On these merits, we are therefore confident that the BUENO Managed Service is delivering strong value for the FM and hope that this will support the further rollout of our offering.

ScenarioConventional Energy Monitoring

BUENO Managed Service

Capital Outlay* NA -$4,000

Annual Fee -$15,000 -$18,000

Estimated average cost avoidance per year^

$3,000 $25,000

Net savings per year -$12,000 $3,000

Total Cost Avoidance with BUENO for a 5 star building $15,000

* Assuming 3 year contract ($12,000/3 = $4,000) even though fee is only once-off for the lifetine of the installation.^Based on utility electricity kWh savings for 2012 vs 2013 prior to BUENO roll-out