Page 9 - Case study: Data driven energy savings in the Hyperdome shopping centre in Queensland, Australia

2. The smart project(s)

2.1. Vision and content

The vision behind the Switch Platform project is to optimize the Hyperdome Shopping Centre’s
building operations in order to significantly lower energy usage and cost while maintaining a
comfortable environment for tenants and shoppers.

Logan City focuses on sustainable living and combatting climate change and the city places a huge
emphasis on reducing energy usage for residents. To realise this vision, the city:

• Offers rebates for energy efficient equipment installed;

• Implemented a lighting upgrade project funded by the Australian Government; and

• Set a plan for achieving carbon neutrality for the Logan City Council’s operations by 2022.

As a marquee institution in Logan City, the Hyperdome attracts thousands of visitors and is highly
visible to its residents. The Hyperdome building management company has invested the necessary
resources into optimising the shopping centre’s energy consumption, leading the charge for other
organisations to do the same.

Using the building’s network infrastructure including IoT sensors and the existing building
management system (BMS), the Switch Platform (the platform which integrates building data,
systems and equipment to provide insights into site performance) connects into the BMS via the
cloud to add deeper visibility into the energy consumption pattern of the Hyperdome. By using this
single digital platform, the building management company is able to fine-tune the BMS operation
of the chiller plants and associated Air Handling Units (AHU) in order to maximise efficiencies of all
equipment, while maintaining conditions within the building to ensure occupant comfort.

Due to the centre's large single-storey floorplan, the air-conditioning utilised cooling from
seven separate chilled water plants spread across the centre. Because of this unique layout, the
Hyperdome proved to be a difficult building for managing energy in comparison to a site with a
central cooling plant. The multiple chilled-water plants and nine separate power supply transformers
for the site (spread across four switch rooms) have also added another layer of challenges to
maximize the Hyperdome’s energy efficiency.

Peak demand utility usage accounted for almost half of the total electricity costs for the site.
Therefore, it was necessary to implement a strategy to reduce peak demand. To ensure conditions
were maintained at all times within the centre, the demand-limiting strategies utilised variable
control to automatically adjust load shed field devices and to ensure no loads are switched off. This
allowed the building management company to successfully reduce peak demand without losing
conditions and avoid any complaints from the tenants or customers.

Data-driven energy savings in the Hyperdome shopping centre | Queensland, Australia 3