99 Walker St, North Sydney
A building that showed great results in July is 99 Walker Street, North Sydney. An active facilities management team has implemented several efficiency strategies, by tightening the building’s operational schedule and optimising HVAC control. The results can be seen from Buildings Alive’s new “Target Profile” messages, which show how the building’s energy performance has been continuously improving and beating its ‘personal best’.
Building Bio
- NLA: 19,295 m²
- Height: 21 Floors
- Built: 1988
- Location: North Sydney CBD
- Owner: INVESTA
- Commenced with Buildings Alive’s REF Service: Dec 2013
A realistic target to pursue
The daily performance analysis shows how the building’s actual consumption (blue line) has dropped since the modelling period (green line), on a weather- and occupancy-adjusted basis.
A target based on the building’s best performance during similar weather (red line) shows how close the building is performing to its personal best, and keeps the operations team informed if there is still room for improvement. The example below shows 99 Walker Street beat its target by 21% on a typical winter day, thanks to the new strategies the FM team applied.
Strategies for success
Since mid-April, the facilities management team and the BMS contractor have implemented several efficiency strategies and tuned the BMS to improve building performance:
- A) Zone temperature dead bands: Cooling and heating dead-bands were widened to 2°C.
- B) Chiller control: The chiller is now locked out in the morning, and some rogue sensors have been removed from the cooling calculation to prevent overcooling.
- C) Optimal start- and stop-times: The FM optimised the start and stop times based on building demands and seasonal conditions.
- D) Condenser water pump upgrade: Upgrades to the tenant condenser water loop allow the pumps to run at low speed when cooling demand is low.
With the help of these initiatives, 99 Walker St has beaten its personal best 19 times in the last three months, and the building is now performing better than ever.