Energy efficiency review of facilities for City of Swan

The government has flagged rising electricity costs. If that increases the urgency of your facilities energy efficiency review, here is an example of that exact study we completed for the City of Swan recently.

PAE was engaged to provide the City of Swan with a report that detailed current day industry practices and standards for energy efficient operation of contemporary aquatic facilities. This report was required to clearly identify its findings and provide specific recommendations that would be incorporated into a design brief for the Ellenbrook Leisure Centre.

PAE was required to work collaboratively with the City’s representative and other appointed external consultants who were tasked with the responsibility of designing and constructing the Leisure Centre. The Ellenbrook Leisure Centre is located within the Ellenbrook District Open Space (EDOS) at 5 Cashman Avenue, Ellenbrook.

PAE presented our recommendations in a formal report framed in a generic manner to keep the City’s procurement options open, highlighting the investment priorities and sharing tips on procurement options.

The report considered the following solutions/technologies for the site:

1. Electrical Generation:
• Solar Photovoltaics
• Cogeneration
• Trigeneration
• Hybrid generation systems
2. Heating and cooling:
• Gas powered boilers
• Air Source Heat Pumps
• Ground Source Heat Pumps
• Geothermal Heating
• Solar Thermal Heating
• Heat Recovery Pumps
• Hybrid operations
3. Plant Room Requirements:
• Size and location of plant room,
• Plant layout for ease of operation and maintenance
• Interfaces and coordination with other building elements
• Access for plant replacement/refurbishment
• Health and safety requirements
4. Lighting:
• LED lighting
• Other energy efficient lighting systems
5. Management and Controls:
• Building Management Systems (BMS)
• Real Time Monitoring
• Variable Speed Drives

In addition to the assessment of viable technologies and design solutions, the report analysed and provided details of financial aspects of the scope and clearly identified:

• capital costs
• operational costs (details of cost comparisons between various types of energy technologies and their requirements)
• cost analysis including whole of life costing of alternatives
• analysis of the environmental benefits associated with the proposed recommendations

Issues encountered

As the project required input from multiple contractors in order to develop the report, coordination between these contractors and PAE was required. PAE addressed this by outlining a framework with which the contractors could present information in a structured and timely manner. Ensuring the framework was adhered to was challenging, however through effective communication and expectation setting, the desired outcome was achieved.

Outcomes

The City was delighted with the report and believes that its credibility, technical rigour and clear presentation has initiated a significant step towards guiding investment decisions and convincing internal stakeholders that might otherwise have been reserved on the uptake of the solutions provided.

PAE identified solutions which will save the city over $300,000 per year in energy costs, with an average ROI of 3.25 years.

We continue our positive relationship with this repeat client and look forward to serving them on future clean energy advisory work.