Gemcell Australia

The government's environmental agencies are beginning to look at old buildings in much the same way that they look at old cars: energy-hungry and polluting. The good news is that unlike old cars, it is (in many cases) economically astute to replace the electricals, plant and equipment in old buildings with new, energy efficient equipment that pays for itself.

As energy efficient refurbishments of small office buildings go, 40 Albert Road, South Melbourne is more than probably the ultimate. Combining leading edge design with world class, no-compromise energy efficiency and environmental sustainability, the Szencorp Building is a landmark building in terms of its employment of environmentally friendly materials, systems and technology. Headquarters of the Szencorp group of companies, 40 Albert Road is not large in dimensions, but the statement it makes about the practicalities, economies and benefits of adopting green building practices is profound.

This building wasn't always a shining example of energy efficiency. First built in 1987, 40 Albert Road began life as a fairly average 1980s, low-tech, low rise office building with a charcoal grey, monolithic exterior and the claustrophobic grey-carpeted maze of interior partitioning all-too-familiar to office workers the world over.

Now, after a total refurbishment in 2004-2005, 40 Albert Road has emerged as arguably the greenest building in Australia and a star performer in the energy conservation field. Designed from the ground up to be a showcase for the products and services of the companies that call it home, the Szencorp building demonstrates the abilities and expertise of its occupants, which include Energy Conservation Systems (ECS), Carbon Partners, Jaemax and Water Conservation Systems.

Awarded a 6 Star Green Star — Office Design V1 rating, this typical late 1980s office building now embodies not only the state-of-the-art in energy efficient technology, but also some cutting edge scientific developments including:

Ceramic Fuel Cell Hot Water technology.

This installation is the first Australian field trial of CFCL Solid Oxide fuel cell technology being trialed in "real life" conditions. The CFCL is rated 85% efficient, converts natural gas into electricity and supplies 90% of the building's hot water needs.

Gas Engine Air Conditioning.

This relatively new, highly advanced technology offers a number of advantages in terms of energy management, and side-steps the summer peak electrical demand. These systems typically use gas-powered engines to replace the electric motors that usually drive air-con compressors. At 40 Albert Road, each of the 21 zones can be controlled independently of each other.

Integrated Occupancy Control.

When spaces are unoccupied, air-conditioning and lighting is reduced accordingly using the Managed Lighting System. The same sensors switch to security mode after hours.

High Efficiency Lighting and Lighting Controls.

In the Szencorp building, lighting design and installation follows world's best practice and utilises new generation triphosphor and T5 lamps with dimmable DSI (Digital Serial Interface) ballasts. Controlled via an intelligent occupancy based system, this achieves an efficiency ratio of 1.4 watts per 100lux.

This is a fully automated lighting control system, where each and every detector is linked by a communications bus. It incorporates motion detectors and photoelectric light sensors to turn lights on and off based on occupancy, and dim to any pre-determined level. Whilst the lighting is not to exceed 400 lux uncontrolled throughout the building, the ECS Managed Lighting System will actually maintain 320 lux at the working plane, therefore automatic control will take into account daylight where available, and also the lamp performance over time.

Each MLS2000 unit consists of a passive infrared motion detector for occupancy control and a regulating (or passive) photocell for lumen control. Each unit will communicate with every other unit through the central bus connection, allowing programming of zones for controlling grouped areas. The ECS Managed Lighting System is installed using a mix of detectors which are:

• Integral, mounted in the luminaire.
• Adjacent to the luminaire where the fitting is unable to take an integrated detector.
• Operated by one detector controlling up to four fittings (offices, board rooms).

The car park lighting is controlled by ultrasonic detectors for long-range operation.

In addition, the lighting controls are also utilised for the HVAC. Each of the HVAC zones utilises the lighting control occupancy sensors for control of the HVAC zones. By grouping the required sensors together, the communications bus is utilised to drive the HVAC plant in each zone. There is only one manual light switch in the building.

Lighting specifications.

• Over 90% of all lights are New Generation Triphosphor T5 (16mm) lamps.
• High Frequency dimming ballasts used for all fluorescent lamps.
• Luminaires — ultra low brightness fixtures with a glare index of less than 19 and a total light output ratio of greater than 70%.
• Maximum light output (uncontrolled) — less than 400 lux.
• 5.24 watts per square metre, base building.
• 1.4 watts per 100 lux, base building.
• No upward waste light (sky glow), glare (TI, GR and maximum intensity), or light trespass (vertical spill light) as there are no external flood lights, or internal luminaires contributing in any way to external light pollution.

"...much of the savings gained in a lighting upgrade can be lost if nothing is done to address the issue of turning the lights off when the building spaces are unoccupied."

Tony Dorotic - National Marketing Manager Energy Conservation Systems Pty Ltd

"The best lighting system for commercial buildings is one that is not reliant on any sort of time-based or manual operation," explained Tony Dorotic, National Marketing Manager at ECS. "Ideally, one that operates automatically when you come into the building at the start of the day, where the lights turn on automatically only in the area that you occupy, and when you move out of that area — the lights turn off. Add to this a system of dimming the lighting according to the ambient light level coming into the space, automatically ramping the artificial light levels up and down according to requirements, and also switching air conditioning on and off or up and down in zones based on occupancy. That kind of system gives you the ultimate returns in terms of energy savings."

Given that this kind of sophistication in energy management systems will be both required and expected in new buildings from now on, I asked Tony how practical or economical it was to retro-fit older buildings with the kind of energy management system he has just described. Tony confirmed that upgrading older buildings was a growth industry, either as part of a refurbishment or as a standalone project, and a big part of the daily operations of ECS.

"On this type of upgrading project," Tony explained, "they are usually required to work within a three year payback framework and are expected to guarantee the savings." Tony sited an example of a three level building in Melbourne upgraded by ECS about two years ago. "When ECS assessed the building, there was absolutely no control on the lights whatsoever, the only way they could turn their lights on or off was via the circuit breaker at the switchboard. Obviously, no-one working in the building was going to go to the switchboard to turn the lights off at the end of the day, so they had a scenario where the lights simply remained on, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. So when you employ a control system in circumstances like these, the paybacks are very attractive indeed. In this case, where an elaborate energy management system was installed, the payback was achieved within twelve months, which is a dramatic and on-going saving in both money and energy."

"The basic principle is electronically controlled, adjustable, reduced power to a given lighting circuit..."

Duane McManus - Business Development Manager Southern Power Management.

I asked Tony what could be done on a smaller scale, for instance if the financial outlay for a full energy management upgrade was not available, and if as a first step, the luminaires were replaced. Tony pointed out that old 36 watt twin fluoro battens could in many cases be replaced with single new 28 watt T5 battens. "The saving in wattage going from a 36 watt luminaire to a 28 watt fitting is obvious," explained Tony. "Then in addition, the efficiency of the new ballast adds to the savings, where the losses occurring in the old iron core technology are diminished by changing over to the relative efficiency of new electronic ballast technology." However, Tony emphasised that much of the savings gained in an upgrade of this kind can be lost if nothing is done to address the issue of turning the lights off when the building spaces are unoccupied.

"Southern Power Management specialises in the reduction of power in large light circuits for factories, multi storey buildings, tunnels, street lighting, in fact just about any large lighting installation using gas filament illumination (anything as simple as your standard fluorescent light right up to the type of lights you see in the streets, tunnels & inside factory roof tops). "The basic principle is electronically controlled, adjustable, reduced power to a given lighting circuit," said Duane, "which in some cases can be reduced by up to 40%, which has very little effect on the light output of the globe itself."

"Knowing that the power consumption to the globe has been reduced by 40%, the energy used to power the light is reduced by 40%, the coal used to generate the electricity is reduced by 40% right down to the carbon dioxide emission reduced by 40%. As the light is running at a lower voltage in many instances, the globe's life can last up to 50% longer along with the following benefits:

• 40% reduction in running costs.
• 40% reduction in burnt coal (actually more — as there are inefficiencies in transmission & burning).
• 40% reduction in Carbon Dioxide emission.

"When you consider the bigger picture, 40%, 30% or even 20% reductions are massive savings when we consider a warehouse could cost $57,024 per year to run just in lighting alone. The example below is worked out on an installation of 360 days per year, 12 hours per day, 120 x 1000watt Sodium Vapour lights. On the above example, assuming a 40% energy reduction, a saving of $22,810.00 per year can be achieved, which can have a massive impact on reducing business overhead expenditure!"

"These systems can be fitted to brand new installations or retro-fitted to old installations, in most cases with ease, as light circuits are very rarely mixed. The units start from 4.4 KVA 20amp single phase, right through to 95.7KVA 145amp per phase 3 phase units, with 31 different indoor & outdoor models, any application no matter how large, can be catered for."

"Movement sensors integrated into the lighting is one of the keys to energy efficiency."

Lindsay Dick - Leopard Controls.

A customer of Electrical Distributors of WA, Leopard Controls installs and maintains Building Management Systems (BMSs) in large multi story buildings. The BMS they install is available world-wide and uses an open protocol, which allows a wide range of equipment to input and retrieve data to and from the BMS. I asked Lindsay to give some examples of key areas where energy savings can be made:

"Air conditioning and lighting are the main areas that can be targeted for energy efficiency. In medium to large buildings, the use of outside air cooling to supplement the existing air conditioning is a widely used practice throughout the industry. This is simply the introduction of outside air, when the outside temperature is within a certain degrees parameter, to carry out the cooling and hence the staging off of compressors or reducing the load on the chillers, which in turn will greatly reduce power consumption. In some cases, where the customer uses very large chillers and the power authority charges a higher rate for peak times of the day, then large chilled water storage tanks are used. These sites use the chillers at night, on a lower tariff, to supply the storage tanks with chilled water. This reduces the amount of chillers used during the day, in peak tariff, as the system draws water from the storage tanks to supplement the amount of chilled water required."

"Energy usage represents a large component cost in the operation of buildings, and the HVAC component of this represents the major share of energy usage."

Tony Pearce - ISAS Integrated Switchgear and Systems Pty Ltd

"Another energy saving tactic used in multi-storey buildings and large commercial sites, when a building management system is present, is the use of lux sensors and motion detectors to trigger the lighting. The lux sensors are used to measure the amount of natural light in the area and to load shed lights as required, say every second or third fitting depending upon the lighting levels and the layout of the area. The use of motion detectors, to trigger the localised lighting to operate on a preset time, is also effective. When the area is occupied, the lighting will operate fully until the motion detector is not triggered for a set time. When the motion detector load sheds the lights, it will leave a minimum of lighting operational for background lighting if required."

Based in the Northern Territory, ISAS has an engineering division that handles building automation including security, access, HVAC, VAV, energy management and lighting. Based on Rockwell Automation, Allen Bradley components and HMI software, ISAS has developed a range of control applications dedicated to HVAC controls. The end product provides fast, reliable solutions of networked controllers reporting back to the central HMI systems. Accurate control and reporting of the plant is essential in achieving the minimum operational cost.

ISAS provides total energy solutions for integrated access, security, lighting, HVAC to provide your facility with lowest possible energy consumption. Features such as remote online support, plant alarms sent to SMS and email, fast Ethernet copper and fibre networks, configurable displays, reports and control strategies are easily implemented into new and existing facilities. ISAS is an authorised C-Bus system integrator.