A little history
452 Flinders Street is a 38,000 square metre A-grade tower that provides high quality office accommodation within the western core of the Melbourne CBD.
It provides tenants with a range of functional on-site amenities that include a cafe, 200 seat auditorium, end of trip facilities and premium concierge services.
The original Lincoln & Scott (now WSP) BMS system was installed back in 1994 by our very own Business Development Manager (VIC), Ian Thomas. Ian was involved in the initial sales, design and engineering of the original system and, as fate would have it, was fortuitously involved in its retuning activity.
Ian recalled that the building was initially built to accommodate the Victorian power company in the 1990s. At that time, every possible piece of energy saving technology was used.
Over the building's 20+ year lifetime, many managers and contractors had made alterations to the original design and programming of the Building Automation System (BAS) in an ad hoc fashion. When the Dexus Property Group Senior Facility Manager, Michael Trim came on-board in 2014, he sat with Ian to discuss future upgrades and life cycle works. Surprisingly, Ian pointed out there were many hardware upgrades that would be useful but, before spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on upgrading the field devices, it would be better to look at the controls programming.
Ian was able to point out the many ways that the building had drifted away from its original design and how the mechanical commissioning concepts of the early 1990's were very different to today's thinking.
Michael noted that Ian started by changing the building's BAS to a more modern methodology. It was done relatively easily and cost-effectively.
What was done?
Ian prepared a proposal which included re-programming the static pressure setpoints to reduce fan speeds and to look at the existing code and remove old and incorrect items.
All the supply and return fans were running at 100%. After recommissioning they are now running, on average at 60-70%. These tweaks meant that the power usage fell, in one year, from 213064 kw/h (July 2015) to 152736 kw/h (July 2016) — a 28.5% reduction.
The tenant comfort increased too, as there were fewer drafts around the floors and the temperatures stabilised.
Ian was able to identify other improvements in the controls tuning and "[they] are continuing to work through these with great success and very little cost."
How did you find dealing with Delta Building Automation?
"Working with the Delta team has been very smooth and consultative, as we discussed at length what the best strategy is and how we prioritise planned improvements.
They've always been realistic with what we can achieve on-site and often deliver results that are better than expected.
The main difference with Delta is their ability to listen and, I can't stress how important this is, without the open communication we could not have achieved the results we did.
Many contractors will push the up-sell based on what is best for their bottom line: with little concern for the asset. Delta did not do this, they listened to the needs of the building and actually offered a smarter and more considered solution."
Would you recommend Delta to other building owners out there?
"I would recommend Delta and their holistic approach to building automation and believe many other assets would benefit from recommissioning their BAS."
