Power-Star approached Sanlam in 2012 with an energy management proposal outlining a process which would allow ambitious electricity saving targets. The idea was to use money saved from behavioural change to fund capital projects to reach the set targets by 2015.
The method followed included Power-Star actively reporting on energy metrics, chairing monthly energy forum meetings and site visits to find new projects for evaluation.
Goals:
The primary goal was to reach the sustainability target, but it was first necessary to find the low-to-no-cost interventions.
Optimization areas:
Tariff optimization – R1.8m pa
Off-peak load – optimization of the BMS settings and manual intervention where required
Chiller operation – changing set-points and using fewer chillers in cold weather
Lighting retrofit – using the savings from the behavioral change, a complete lighting retrofit is currently underway
Chiller retrofit – replacement of old chillers with new efficient chillers
Investigating the effect of replacing all desktops with laptops
2013 showed an 11.8% reduction on 2010 consumption, using only low-to-no-cost interventions. An additional 8% saving is expected for the lighting project, as well as 5% for new chillers. By the end of 2014 the lighting project was completed and we had saved 6.2 million kWh for the year when compared to the baseline.
The savings continued into 2017, with baseline savings of over 33% reported. The new target of 10% reduction by 2020 has already been reached, but new interventions are consistently being evaluated and implemented.
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